Well, the week is finally almost over. Which, in turn, means the year is almost over. And finding VH-1's One Hit Wonder Countdown in Hour 1 of 5 this late is not a good thing. Oh well.

This is not the first year the company I work for has been in business and yet all of the little nuances that I didn't know about last year while I was in QA cropped up this year as a project manager. You'd think that there would have been a meeting a month ago about all this end of the year nonsense. Today it was sprung on me that the rest of the paperwork that I had shoved aside was due by noon on Friday. Woo-hoo!

I'll get to the actual post that I had been writing in just a minute. I just got a phone call from Matt. He's been visiting relatives since last Friday and will continue to be visiting until after the new year. He was apparently out shopping and felt the pressing need to call and inform me that he could buy me, brace yourself, VALENTINE'S DAY CANDY!!!!! For the love of God, it's not even 2007 yet. I just don't understand. I don't get it. I don't even want to try. Now, back to the original post that I was working on.

Well, it's not quite the end of the year, but I did hit a number that I've been striving for all year. On January 1st, I listed the following items...

1. Drop 20% of my body weight
2. Double the number of novels read in 2005 from 15 to 30 (yes, I know it's sad that I only managed to clear 15 novels in the past year, that's why I'm trying to change it.)
3. Blog a lot more often with a lot more consistency
4. Begin writing for me
5. Visit family and friends

Number 1 didn't happen. I got promoted, got busy, and got lazy. I am ending the year 10 pounds or so lighter than I entered it, but I had much higher aspirations.
Number 2 didn't happen either. I didn't even make the 15. So I have two things to work on automatically for next year. Number 4 didn't happen. Number 5 happened sporadically, but not enough. There were many more that we couldn't get to and I do apologize. Hell, we went months at a time not seeing people here in Pittsburgh this year. Now, on to number 3 and the reason for this post. I decided on January 1st that the number I wanted to hit in order to satisfy number 3 was 250. That meant I could skip 115 days during the year and still make 250. Well, today's post is number 250. It took me almost the entire 12 months, but I did satisfy that requirement. Hopefully at least 1 or 2 of the 250 were worth reading. I know they weren't all masterpieces, but they weren't all angry rants either which is a good balance for me. So, I'll probably give a similar list for 2007 (maybe some additions, some scaled back aspirations), but for now I'm happy to have hit 250 posts for 2006 and there are still 5 days to go.
And, for anyone who is counting, it's 50 days til Valentine's Day.

Well, it's over. Back to the grind tomorrow. Then hopefully a lull going into the new year, but I doubt it. Several of my clients seem determined to see me have a nice massive heart attack. Gage seemed to have a really good Christmas. He got presents on Saturday from Uncle Tom. He got presents on Sunday from Terri's family. He got presents this morning from Santa and Mommy and Daddy. Then he got presents this afternoon from my family. So he's been pretty content. Hopefully he'll settle back into a routine in the new year.

Almost done. By this time tomorrow the hype will finally be over.

***The rest of this post deleted by author due to the inevitable backlash of yet another anti-Christmas rant***

Enjoy the day!

Ah, three days of rest and relaxation. Who am I kidding? We think we've finished up shopping, but who knows. I'm sure I'll have to make a run somewhere. Now I have to get everything organized so that Terri can get it all wrapped. At the moment we have no plans for tomorrow, but again, that'll probably change. We'll most likely run out of some food substance and it'll take me 8 hours to pick up a frozen pizza or something.

It certainly doesn't feel like Christmas. It got up around 50 degrees here today. The closest thing we had to snow on the ground was the frost I scraped off my car. I guess technically there's 3 full days before Christmas so you never know. Ok, anyone who has even stopped by my blog briefly probably made the astute assumption that I'm a hockey fan and that my favorite team is the Pittsburgh Penguins. That being said, I was of course following the whole casino awarding process quite closely. There were three plans competing for one award. The North Shore plan, which didn't really seem remotely plausible. The Station Square plan, which was good in theory, but bad in execution. The Isle of Capri plan, which, in addition to the actual casino, was also committing 290 million dollars to a new multi-purpose arena for the county. Of course, the Penguins would have benefited greatly from the Isle of Capri plan. Setting the hockey angle aside, I don't understand how anyone can look at the plan and not feel like it was the best one. There is not one person in Allegheny County who can say that the arena wouldn't host an event that they might attend. My Grandmother, who rarely left Washington County, went to the arena for the circus and the Billy Graham revival.
Heinz Field hosts somewhere in the vicinity of 25-35 events per year. Steelers games, Pitt games, the WPIAL championships, and some large concerts when available. PNC Park has 81 Pirate games and good weather large concert events. If scheduled carefully, an arena can be put to use 250-300 times a year or more. 41 hockey games for the Pens, concerts, the circus, ice-shows including Stars on Ice, Disney on ice, Sesame Street on ice, etc., Monster Truck Rallies, Pro-Wrestling, basketball games, and on and on. Hell, Pitt used to hold graduation ceremonies there for the entire University. How do you turn that down and face the people you just screwed? It can't possibly have had anything to do with the actual casino. Everyone involved knows that on some level none of the plans were going to meet their 1 year earning projections or their 5 year earning projections. Where exactly are the people using these machines going to come from? I know that people plan vacations to gamble, I get that. However, what does Pittsburgh have to offer to compete with Atlantic City, Vegas, Niagra Falls, etc.? And the casino is only slots. No table games. Serious gamblers need a tad more than slots. It absolutely baffles me how you can be a fully functioning adult and turn down 290 million FREE dollars. I guess instead of laying out money for season tickets next year I'll have to invest in the Center Ice package on satellite so that I can see the Kansas City Penguins or Cows or whatever the hell they end up being.

Ugh. In the category of things that would have been helpful to know last week. Almost the entire senior management staff was gone starting tomorrow and through the new year. That meant all paperwork had to be in and finished. Guess who got hosed on that deal. I showed up to work Tuesday morning around 9ish. I left work Wednesday morning around 8ish, ran home, showered, changed and headed back. I left work again at about a quarter after 6. The kicker...still not finished. They gave up and shortened my list to the crucial items. I got most of that done. Of course, that meant that I missed a Penguins game and two days worth of Christmas shopping. Oh well. 99% of my clients will be out of the office next week so hopefully I can finish digging myself out of the hole. Just in time to greet the new year.

Well, I also know where I'll be on July 4th. The trailer didn't even give a hint of plot, but that doesn't matter where the Die Hard franchise is concerned. I guess I'll have to give consideration to the other movie opening in July of next year. It's some franchise they're beating to death. This one will be number 5 and there are talks of 7 total.
Surprisingly enough, Christmas shopping (what little I've actually done) hasn't been too bad. Of course, I've avoided most malls and major stores, but whatever it takes. In fact, we're almost done with shopping for this year. Just a few more people. I think.

Well, congratulations to Matt. He's now Dr. Mutchler. As a nice pre-Dr. gift, I did not call to taunt Matt about the Penguins/Flyers Wednesday night match-up. And believe me, there would have been a lot to taunt. A nice 8-4 victory. Sidney Crosby has a 6 point night. He also takes the lead in the NHL scoring race. Several Pens players also had a 4 point night. And for the first time in Penguins history, they've opened a season series with the Flyers 5-0. Which means they'll only need to win 3 more times against the Flyers to sweep the season. That would be a nice Christmas present. We just need to figure out how to beat certain teams now. Like Montreal.

Gage and Colby Armstrong
Gage and Ryan Malone
Gage and Iceburgh
Well, I'll talk about Wednesday later once I have a little more information. For now, I just wanted to show these three pics.

On Friday night Terri had the late shift so I was watching Gage. At around 8 there wasn't really anything on television and I figured that most of the holiday retards would have cleared out of the local shopping haunts. So, I called Terri and told her we were headed out to do some shopping. I bundled Gage up and we headed up the stairs. Gage was singing "Jingle Bells" at the top of his lungs and that's when I noticed the front end of a car in my sight line at the top of the hill. That meant that the car was parked in the middle of the road. Then I noticed the bubble lights. It was a police car just parked there. I live on a dead end alley road and this was quite a surprise. Then I noticed there were two more cars and a police wagon parked behind the first car. I turned to the right and there was another car in the parking slot next door. I turned to the left and there was another car in the neighbor's driveway. So, there were 6 total police vehicles blocking our tiny little dead end alley. Gage is still singing away and the only thought running through my mind is that the police are on a manhunt and I'm about to be shot at. Then we noticed the nice neighbor lady in her kitchen so we headed up to see if she knew what was going on. Turns out the alarm went off in the not-so-nice neighbor's house and these were the responders. And, apparently they couldn't go in the house til they got hold of someone. Whatever the time limit is, they apparently went past that and forced the door open. The brand new door to his brand new addition. What made me laugh is that it was his front door that had the alarm go off. But the screen door was locked from the inside. Instead of just wrenching open the screen door apparently they broke the frame and some of the hinges on his new door. That's karma coming back around for you.

One of my team members at work turned around and said, "I really hate Mondays." My answer, "Around here, every day in December is a Monday. Did you finish your list yet?" Some Christmas cheer. Our holiday party got moved to next year. And, I'm pretty sure there's no way I'm going to be able to deliver all the projects that I have currently going. Of course, we're going to try. I'm cutting so many corners right now, my cube is shaped like a donut. MMMM, donuts.

So, December (what there has been of it) has gone by quickly and without any fanfare. Since I've been in the process of a bazillion different things, I haven't even had the time to stop and notice the usual holiday annoyances. Terri has done absolutely all of the Christmas shopping thus far and though I'll be tortured at some point, I guess it's gone quite well. Since I've been carrying CD's in the car (though I guess it's not technically a car anymore) I haven't heard much in the way of Christmas Carols. Unless you count Gage practicing for his Christmas program. In which case I've heard, "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer," "O Christmas Tree," and "Jingle Bells" over and over. This must be for the retarded child who can work weird contraptions, but can't cup their hands together and pat.

So I gave the audio book on cd another shot and this time it played without any glitches. So, for the past week or so, on my daily commute I've been listening to Shopgirl read by the author Steve Martin. I don't know if it was the book, Steve's intonation, or my general distaste for the whole genre, but it was not a pleasant first experience. Who knows, maybe someday I'll try again.

Tonight's game certainly didn't have the outcome that I wanted. However, I did get to finish watching the game from the special lower section box seats so it wasn't a total loss. Gage had a lot of fun and got to see Iceburgh up close again. I can't believe that it's only 20 days til Christmas. Which means that there's only 26 days left in the year. I wish I knew where 2006 went. There was a hell of a lot more that I wanted to accomplish.

What a weekend. The boxful of work went untouched. And while that was a good thing over the weekend, it didn't bode well for a good Monday. But, I managed to survive and keep punching and jabbing til I left. Of course, another pile came home with me. Hopefully Studio 60 will be good tonight and I'll be jazzed enough to stay up and make a dent in the work.
Through whatever combination of being lazy, busy, etc. I haven't had a shave in about a week and a half. So, I'm sporting a pretty good growth. Someone at work asked if it was my catch-up beard. Like I wasn't going to shave until I had all my work caught up. I thought about it a second and realized that if that was the case, I'd either look like this or this.

Is it a law that time and space have to slow down on a Friday? It's very painful to have a full week after the abbreviated week last week. Even though I only had one day off, we did manage to get out a couple of hours early on both Wednesday and Friday. Oh well, maybe car shopping tomorrow will be in my benefit. I doubt it, but I can hope.

Wow, I looked at the stats yesterday and it said that was my 600 post since starting the blog. Not too bad. Although 600 posts in 44 months isn't great. So, most of you who know me know that I'm not a fan of books on tape or cd. I gave Matt a dispensation because of his 1 hour commute each way. I gave Tom a dispensation because of a 5 hour trip across the state. I, myself, never listened to a book on tape or cd. Until this morning that is. Those who know me are also aware that I hate holiday creep. So, when I heard my first Christmas Carol on the radio more than a week before Thanksgiving, I started carrying CD's in the car constantly. Well, Tom was home this past weekend and he had Shopgirl by Steve Martin read by Steve Martin. So, I thought I'd give it a try. I took it in the car with me this morning and my car cd player started the disc, let it play for about a minute and a half and started skipping. I ejected the disc and there were no spots, no scratches, nothing to prevent it from playing. I put it in again, more skipping. I waited 10 minutes to see if the car should be warmed up or something, same result. I took the disc into the office when I got there and it played just fine on my computer. So, apparently I'm not supposed to listen to books on tape or cd.

It's amazing how quickly the day goes when you get stuck in a conference room for two hours. Of course, the time doesn't go quickly inside the room, just everywhere else. Tomorrow is the last day in November already. 26 days til Christmas. That means only 34 more days til they start advertising the sales for next year.

Well Sid was back and we came away with a win. It wasn't pretty, but it puts them in better standing within their division. Back to back games this weekend and a couple of wins should put them right back on top. The nice thing is, they're hovering right around playoff contention. That will be the true test of the season. Keeping the team on track to make and advance in the playoffs.

Hopefully Sidney will be back tomorrow night. I can handle, a point, but seriously, 2.2 seconds left in the overtime? That's just missed coverage. It's the Rangers, dammit, not a good team. I find it interesting how work ramps back up after a main holiday. Most people, in fact my entire client list, had both Thursday and Friday off. Most of them took Wednesday as well. So, I had two days of relatively stress free catch-up. This morning started off fine. Then around 11 am everyone pretty much called at once with whatever emergency they had just discovered, thus ending any hope of getting real work done period.

Thanksgiving was nice. Not necessarily relaxing, but nice. Gage had a great time playing with my niece. Then later in the evening we headed over to Tom's parent's house. His nephew Eli was there so Gage had another playmate for a while. Hopefully there won't be too much of the black Friday nonsense going on on the way to work tomorrow.

Wednesday didn't go quite as fast as I had hoped, but we did get out of work earlier than normal so I guess it was a wash. So yesterday I was watching celebrity Jeopardy. Does anyone else find it both ironic and disconcerting that the Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings got whomped by Micheal McKean? And I'm not talking about just a couple hundred ahead. I'm talking 3 times the amount of money. The Pens managed a point tonight in a game they should have lost. In fact they came back in a wonderful fashion pushing it to overtime and losing in a shootout against the Bruins. Well, Friday afternoon it's the Islanders and Saturday night it's the Rangers. I'd love to see back to back wins. With New Jersey's loss tonight and a 4 point gain we'd be back on top of the division, where we belong.

The wolf raised his head slightly. His nose had detected something foreign in the air. Water dripped from the exposed fang. The fresh carcass drug to the hole lay on the flat to the left. Three wolves now crept between the watering hole and the flat. To eat meant to fight. As the first aggressor strode forward, the wolf put his head down again toward the water. Then in a flash he was on the aggressor's back and in the same motion pushed him into the tree stunning him. The companions dove at the same time. Crouching low, the wolf was able to gain the advantage and managed to sink his teeth cleanly into a hind leg. Yowling the wolf limped off to lick his wound. Now it was a one on one battle. Seeing his companions down left the third wolf uncertain and it was that weakness that was exploited. A slash to the jaw and the battle was over. Without glancing back, the wolf picked up his kill and trotted toward his home secure in the knowledge that he would not be followed.

Strength comes, not from numbers, but from singular determination.

Here's to a quick Wednesday into the holiday.

Stupid technology. Our phones were getting pretty beat up and this month we crossed that whole new every 2 nonsense. So tonight we headed to the Verizon store and listened to the spiel before explaining to the guy that, "the phone rings, we answer" and sometimes we text message. He tried selling us on some ringback tone nonsense and then upgrading our text messaging (which we have never maxed out). So when we finally got the phones, he transferred our cell numbers (so that hasn't changed for the people who have the numbers) and handed us the phones. I now have a headset that I'll probably never use. One thing that irks me is that the text messaging is set up completely different from my old phone. I haven't quite figured out how to switch it to smart-texting where it will finish my words for me, thus saving me time and energy. So, I have to type in each letter for the moment. Stupid technology.

It's a shame. I brought so much work home this weekend and I've done next to none of it. I know that most people are applauding that I spent my weekend doing other things, but since I was behind on Friday when I left work and I haven't caught myself back up, tomorrow's going to suck. I just have to keep checking til I get into the clear.

Today was my 2 year anniversary at work. I can't believe it's been 2 years already. Mid-July next year and I'll surpass my own record at keeping a job. Of course, that's assuming I make it that long. At least next week is only a 4 day week. That should give me a slight break I guess.

A lot of people at work and several regular readers of this blog watch the new NBC show "Heroes" every week. It's a frequent topic of discussion. One of the guys in the pod next to us will come over, chat briefly about Studio 60 with me and then join the Heroes conversation with two of my other pod-mates. During this week's conversation there was a turn to heroes with super powers and regular people raised to the hero level. The natural flow of the conversation turned to pop culture. Big name actors, rock legends, sports personalities all mentioned in the same sentence as the word hero. But they were mostly in the past...Bogart, Brando, Dylan, Cash, Howe, Lemieux, all guys that are either retired from their profession (either by choice or by nature) or guys that are simply trying to keep a little of their past alive by lacing them up for a pick-up game, playing some benefit concerts, whatever. By the time Gage grows up will there still be heroes? Will there still be someone to look up to? Or will society be jaded beyond the point of raising a common man to an uncommon status based on ability? Since hockey is usually the prevalent theme...will someone like Sidney Crosby have the same level of career that Mario Lemieux did? 90% of the time most of the fans in the arena aren't even sure that Lemieux is in the building. Yet, they simply show a clip of one of his goals or a charitable act and the whole place is on their feet in a standing ovation. And it's not just hometown bias. I thought for sure it would on YouTube, but I couldn't readily find it. When Mario Lemieux first retired from the game of hockey in 1997 it was during the Playoffs. Pittsburgh was playing Philadelphia and ultimately ended up losing the series in Philadelphia. So, at that point, Mario had played his last game on the road. The fans in Philly stood and applauded for several minutes to the point where Lemieux did a farewell lap in the opponent's arena. Ask Matt to confirm, there is no love period between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh in the world of the NHL, but they showed respect to a premier athlete of the game. A man who could change the entire course of a game with one play. People in Pittsburgh sometimes called it Mario Magic. When television did a close-up on Mario, Mike Lange used to warn people about his "hungry" look. When Mario looked hungry, things happened. Will Malkin make a similar impact? Malone, Fleury, Armstrong...will they match up to Orr, Howe, Richard? Doubtful. Will they make their own impact like Trottier, Stevens, Francis? Only time will tell, but it's to the point now where the media is gun-shy to even make comparisons or observations about talent and productivity at any level. Johnny Cash's music is ingrained in the fabric of American society. Will Toby Keith have the same effect? Mark Twain's fiction is available in any book store. Will Stephen King prevail beyond his time? Most people in Pittsburgh and beyond recognize the names of Terry Bradshaw and Jack Ham. How many people remember Roy Gerela? Tom and I had a similar discussion about Entourage and the fact that neither one of us truly bought Grenier's character as the newest hottest actor. He had no presence. Yet when we started looking at the "hot" actors of today, there was no presence among them either. Maybe it's just the cold medicine talking, but I hope that Gage or Nathan or Katie or Nicholas or Andrew or Kadin or Jacob or Norah get to grow up and experience some form of awe over an everday hero, someone who has overcome the odds and still come out on top. Whether that's a famous athlete, a teacher, or even a next door neighbor I hope they are sitting around in 30 years talking (okay rambling) about how impacted they were by childhood and adult "Heroes."

Last night's hockey game was good. It's kind of ironic that getting our seats moved between the first and second periods cost us t-shirts in the third period, but I guess having the extra seat and closer view makes up for it.
After reading Conversations Before Dinner you know that even though they mean well a toddler just won't absorb everything you say. Sometimes you even suspect they might not be listening. But what of the other people in your life? Wife, husband, mother, father, co-workers, boss, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. What happens when you suspect they might not be listening? And then, what happens if it goes beyond suspecting? What if you have proof that your co-worker isn't listening? Your wife? Your parents? Your siblings? I'm not talking about forgetting some minor detail of a conversation that you had 3 years ago about what your favorite color shirt button is on an oxford button down bought after July 4th in an outlet mall on a rainy Tuesday (greyish blue, in case you forgot). I'm talking about big things. I'm talking about the fact that I'm expected to know every nuance of the 78 projects that I currently have going on. But if I send an email to someone and follow up one day later, I get a blank look. Why does the road never go both ways? Am I expecting too much?

Happy Birthday Susie!!!!!!

Hopefully the Pens can turn into the skid tomorrow night when Philadelphia skates into town. We could use another 8-2 whomping in our favor. The past two games haven't exactly been indicative of the season which is a good thing. On a more positive note I'm pretty much caught up on all the television I've been blowing off. That all changes tomorrow when we're at the game and I have to tape Studio 60 again. Since I have to be at work at 7 a.m. on Tuesday I doubt I'm going to be in the mood to come home and skim through 43 minutes of television that you have to pay attention to closely.
Tom had sent me a CNN article on a complete season pickup for Studio 60 which makes me happy. It really surprised me that the article pointed out that Sorkin was aiming for a demographic that was smaller in scope and more refined than advertisers usually strive for. Since I'll have to tape tomorrow's episode, I might do a quick analysis of the commercials.
And, I've got to say, a sketch putting Jesus Christ as the head of the standards and practices bureau of a network would be hilarious.

The two parter episode of South Park that played on Buck Rogers was absolutely hilarious. It made me want to run out and pick up the series just to see the in-jokes that I might have missed due to memory lapses from childhood. Another week gone by and once again I have that sinking feeling of a distinct lack of accomplishment. Often I wonder if therapy might help ease my apprehension in times like that, but then I realize that if I tried to schedule another hour in my week to actually meet with a therapist, I'd get even less done. I believe Joseph Heller described it best.

We have to figure out how to win in overtime. And even more difficult, I have to figure out how to break to my parents that the plans that we changed 4 times for Thanksgiving have to be changed again since I forgot to cross reference it with the hockey schedule. Fun.

Tom was in this weekend and gave me some interesting things for my birthday. The two books were this and this. An interesting mix to say the least. There was also a magnetic bumper-sticker that I didn't really understand how it related to me. It was something to the effect of, "I'll be perfect as soon as I get that walking on water thing down." I'm not sure how this pertains to me. I'm probably the most humble person I know. I mean, I'm truly humble. In all aspects of life. Completely and totally humble.

Tomorrow is election day. Take 5 minutes, pull up your local paper online, make a few informed decisions and VOTE!!!! Previous Americans fought hard to give us the right to vote and exercising that right is a great way to repay them. Besides, I have to hold out that slim hope that one day our politicians we elect will do what's right for America (and not necessarily the party they represent).

Okay, so we're 1 and 1 on the west coast going into Anaheim. I can live with that I guess. Although there was certainly some sloppy hockey played in the shark tank. It just would have been nice to stick it to Ron Wilson again like we did so many years when he was with the Capitals. It's also a shame that Malkin's scoring streak came to an end. But, there were still good things to look at in the game and hopefully they can carry that stuff into the Duck pond and come home on a winning note. Terri's at work all day today pulling a double shift. So, I have the little from 7 am to 9:30 pm. So far so good.

Ah, overtime on the west coast. That meant I climbed into bed somewhere in the vicinity of 1:30 am. Right before I shut off the television, the local sports show has "highlights" of the Pitt/Carnegie Mellon basketball game. I think the score was something like 103 to 45. Let's just say we weren't really on the winning end of that one. Oh well, I guess that's just one more thing the Pitt students can add to their list of things to dislike about their bosses when the Carnegie Mellon students hire them.

I actually got quite a bit accomplished at work. One of my clients is quite a talker, which is actually a nice break occasionally. I'm working, so I don't feel guilty about it. A large portion of my job is good customer service. What's funny is that this particular client has been working with me in various capacities for well over a year and she might carry enough weight to have me flown to Chicago to meet her and her staff. I doubt it's going to come about, but it's kind of funny. Putting a face to a voice on the phone is always interesting.
The west coast swing isn't starting off as well as I had hoped, but maybe they can pull it out.
Oh, and my usual yearly rant...It's 11/1 and we're shopping for one of Gage's little friends who is having a birthday party. I'm expecting to get good deals on some Halloween candy that's been slashed because of the packaging. Instead, when I wander back to the seasonal section of Target I see one small section of some pumpkins and a couple costumes and 8 aisles of Christmas assorted merchandise. Christmas. Dammit, if I ran the world Christmas wouldn't be allowed to start until the day after Thanksgiving. That would be law.

I guess I forgot to mention it, mostly because I could care less that my birthday has come and gone yet again. I'm a year older and the only difference is that I now have to remember exactly how old I actually am. However, Terri did go out of her way to get me a nice gift. I'll have to post a picture of it. It's a framed picture of Kevin Stevens and Mario Lemieux standing on the ice with their backs to the camera watching one set of the Stanley Cup Banners being raised to the rafters of the Igloo. So, now I have two of my three favorite hockey players of all time in a great shot of Penguins history.
Why is it in a situation where everyone is floundering, on-edge, and tension is stretching everyone to the max that the one or two people trying to keep it all together feel the most persecuted?

Why can't I just buy something at the store like everyone else? They decided last week to hold a pot-luck dinner at work tomorrow. I, of course, signed up to make a cake. Which means that it's now 11:00 at night and I have a cake cooling and icing chilling and I'm probably looking at another 2 or 3 hours to put it all together in a coherent fashion. It would be nice if I could just go down to the store, pick out a cake and be done with it in about 11 minutes, including drive time. At least Terri was nice enough to make the icing. That saved me at least 45 minutes.

Wow, 8-2. Crosby's first NHL hat trick. Another short handed goal for the Penguins, which means they should be tops in the league in that category. Oh and as sweet as the win is, it's made all the better by the fact that the opponent was Philadelphia and the game was in Philadelphia. Hopefully the Pens will fare well on their west coast swing for the next week or so. The Kings aren't doing so well, but Anaheim is on a roll so we'll see. We came to the realization at work that we were less than 10 weeks away from the end of the year. Single digits!?! Where the hell did the summer go? I swear that yesterday was May.

Well, today wasn't as good a day, but I still managed to get stuff done. Now I just have to put together a viable costume before tomorrow night's party and I'm golden. I did get to watch the Charlie Brown Halloween special, "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown." Gage seemed to like it, but it will be a few years before he understands the whole thing.
The Pens are playing Philadelphia in Philadelphia tomorrow night. After tomorrow the season series will stand Pittsburgh 2 Philadelphia 0. That will put the Pens back on top in the division and the Flyers will still be last in the league. Ah, what a refreshing change from last year.

Today was actually a pretty decent day at work. Got a bunch of stuff done, got more work into the queue to be done and no one really had any complaints. That probably means that tomorrow is gonna suck. I realized today that we're less than a week from November. No truly special significance in that fact unless you flash back to my life one year ago (also an especially busy time at work) and look at all the things that were going on. Then you'll know that I realized that I wouldn't be able to participate in NaNoWriMo. For the writers in the crowd you'll know what I'm talking about. For everyone else, National Novel Writing Month runs from November 1st to November 30th. The object is to turn out a 50,000 word novel in that time span. So, I was a little sad to realize that another year would pass before I could participate. That same sadness came back today as I realized that I couldn't even remotely think about participating this year either. I realize that I post here fairly steadily, but I don't write anywhere near as often as I should. And I'm not honing any skills posting ramblings about Malkin and Crosby's goals or Gage's latest escapades. Can you smell the self-pity? Oh well, it's late, more work to finish and endless odds and, well, ends.

Server Migration complete and late night testing all done. It's probably the closest I'll get to one of those online gamer experiences with emails and ims shooting back and forth coordinating all the portal testing. Now I can get back to just regular work for another couple of hours or so. Just a couple of great hockey clips to watch both old and new. The first one is from Tuesday night's game against the Devils. Crosby and Malkin make Brodeur look like the last kid picked in gym class wearing his older brother's pads pouting because he has to play goal. The second one happened on Wednesday December 27th, 2000 in the 2nd period. It's Mario's first goal after retirement. Almost everyone in the arena was focused on the puck and not many caught the pass to Mario streaking down the slot. He doesn't often miss from there.

Not much going on recently. I'm still trying to get everything righted in the house after the wedding weekend. I've got most of the cds put away. I still have to hook up the stereo equipment and get all the cassettes put away. Tonight's hockey game went really well. We started the game up in F level and due to a few nice connections ended up in C level for the last two periods. Terri took Gage out for just a few minutes in the 3rd period and missed the prettiest Malkin goal yet. He made Brodeur look like a whiny teenager stuck in goal by default in a street hockey pick up game.
On the downside of things, I think I'm coming down with a cold or I'm allergic to something.

After not dj'ing for more than 5 years I packed up all my stuff to come out of retirement yet again for Mitch's wedding. Friday night I left work, hit 3 record stores, came home, integrated and catalogued all the new cds and began packing them up. I went to sleep at 4:30 in the morning and still wasn't finished. Got back up at 9, finished packing all the cds, packed up all the tapes, decided to not take the records, broke down all the stereo equipment and then Terri and I made approximately 45 trips between the two of us getting everything up to the truck. Thankfully the place where the wedding/reception was held had a door we could back the truck up to. Then it was only a short walk across the floor to get everything set up. Of course at the end of the night we had to do everything in reverse. I'll have to post the picture of what the truck looked like with everything packed up. When Terri and I got home we just grabbed some of the stereo stuff and left everything else til morning. Then my wonderful wife let me sleep in while she unloaded everything that was left. Sunday we headed down to my parents to return the truck and celebrate my niece's 2nd birthday. She and Gage had a good time with all her new toys.

So yesterday at work we got into a "discussion" about art at work. This article is what sparked the whole thing. One of the guys in my "pod" made the statement that anyone who bought a work of art of that caliber should have to give the painting to a museum where everyone can enjoy the work as the artist intended. So this led to a whole discussion on where you could draw this line. He claimed that anyone spending that kind of money on a painting was motivated by nothing but ego and greed. He refused to admit that appreciation could be a motivating factor. "All art is created for the people and meant for the people and private collectors are all greedy bastards." Now, to an extent he's probably right, but what about everyone else? Is it fair to deny me a work of art from an artist that I love simply because I'm able to afford it? When asked what the millionaire should keep at his house, he answered that there are enough high quality reproductions and prints that one could use in place of the real thing (which should be on permanent loan to a museum). Of course, it couldn't work the other way. Even though the reproductions are of a high enough quality, they aren't suitable for the museum and everyone else, but the millionaire should settle.
I'm eager to hear other people weigh in on this. I know it seems a little scattered and the way I'm putting forth the argument it's certainly skewed in my favor. Here's the argument I'm giving as one scenario. Let's say that Da Vinci lived next door to my great-great-great-great-great grandfather (yeah, not enough greats, but let's just go for the sake of argument). Da Vinci thinks my relative's house and grounds look great in the setting sunlight. So he paints the grounds and gives the painting to my relative. He gives it to his son. His son gives it to his son and so on down through the generations til it gets to my grandfather. Grandpa sits me on his lap in the living room at least once a visit and tells me the story about how the great Leonardo Da Vinci painted this painting of our relative's estate. Grandpa dies and wills the painting to my dad just like every generation prior. My dad dies and wills the painting to me. Now, everyone in the family suspects that this painting is worth millions and it probably is. But I'd never even consider selling the painting. I'd only have it appraised to keep the insurance accurate. But it would never be sold. Why? Because that painting means more to me as a family heirloom full of stories and sentiment than it does as a multi-million dollar Da Vinci. This argument was summarily dismissed. So, now I'm interested in how you the reader view the distribution of art and one of a kind treasures. Allowable for the private collector or only suitable for public consumption?

I have a huge post boiling up based on a conversation/argument at work today, but first I must interrupt and say FIRST GOAL IN THE NHL BABY!!!!
That's right, Evgeni Malkin popped his first goal past Martin Brodeur in the 2nd period to tie the game at 1. Sadly the Pens didn't pull out the win, but they did manage to pile up some shots. So, hopefully the tandem of Crosby, Malkin, and Staal will dazzle the people of Pittsburgh for years to come. With complement players like Malone, Armstrong, and Ouellet and veterans like Recchi and LeClair, I think we have a solid season. We just need to string together some wins. We're on the road tomorrow so hopefully that will go well. I should have time tomorrow to get into the work discussion. I'm very interested in seeing how the 1 or 2 readers out there actually weigh in on the discussion.

Hopefully Veronica Mars is finding a big enough audience on Tuesday nights on the new CW. I'd hate to see plot lines not wrapped up on that show. I'm not quite sure about Ed Begley Jr's character yet, but maybe he'll face the same fate as Steve Guttenberg. Gage's daycare gave us the heads-up that they're going to be selling Sarris Candy for Christmas. I understand the fundraiser aspect. I understand that chocolate, especially Sarris, is a welcome addition to the holidays. What I don't understand is why they try and pack it in around Christmas. Why not have an April fundraiser when no one else is really selling much and there's less competition? It's the same argument I have with television. Soap Operas are on 52 weeks a year and rarely miss a day's episode. Why can't network television follow a similar structure? The first network that figures out how to have a large ensemble show that rotates story lines and characters to accomodate vacations will build a viewership that will top ER, CSI, and Friends in their respective heydays.

When I was little my family didn't do big vacations. Dad owned his own business and we rarely went far from home. We didn't trek to the Grand Canyon or Disneyworld or places like that. We went camping or to visit family. Those trips rarely required more than 4 or so hours and didn't really take us on interstates or turnpikes. So as a child we didn't play the license plate game the way a lot of people did. We didn't gather states like other people did. We usually started with A and went down through the alphabet using billboards, plates, and roadsigns. However, when 4 different states (none bordering Pennsylvania) passed us on the turnpike mid-Friday morning Terri and I started watching and over the course of the weekend we saw 30 different states, Washington, D.C., Ontario, and a PA plate for Barbershoppers. I thought that was a pretty good haul on about an 8 hour total drive on the same stretch of turnpike. As I said yesterday there were probably a lot more stories I could tell, but most of them would require too much backstory to make it enjoyable. Anyway, I need to wrap it up for Studio 60 and the huge amount of work that needs to get done.

Well, we made it to the hotel (after a detour to the Boyd's Bear Outlet store and several phone calls from the office) with about 25 minutes til we were supposed to depart the hotel for the reahearsal dinner. And Terri and I both needed to shower and I needed to shave. So, we checked in and raced upstairs to our room and made it down in record time. We made it to the rehearsal dinner and started the process of mingling. With the size of Terri's extended family, that takes quite a while. The following day we had a lot of time to kill before the wedding. Then at 4:45 we got on the bus that was to take us to the wedding/reception site. Things got started about 15 or so minutes late and we were in a side room off the chapel which was about twice the size of my current living room. For those of you that haven't been in our living room, that's not very big even at double the size. The rest of the wedding went well and now we're back. I'll probably have some more stories to tell, but I'm trying to get acclimated now that I'm back so I'll just go.

Well, I'm still working to get clear for tomorrow. Theoretically I could work from this moment until I pull away in the car tomorrow morning and still be behind so that's not much help. I do need to accomplish enough tonight so that my QA partner isn't overwhelmed. No sense both of us being stressed. Well, I missed the game tonight since we were at a friend's house, but thanks to the sports package actually benefiting me for once, the Madison Square Garden channel plays all of the Rangers games in 60 minutes so I get to see the outcome, the highlights and in about half the time. So far the game is going well, but it's opened up. After a scoreless first there have been 9 goals so far in the past 30 minutes. And with about 4 seconds to go the Pens go up by the winning score of 6-5. Woo-hoo! That's great so far this year. 3 games and we've won 2 (which is good in and of itself) and those two have been against big east coast rivals the Flyers and the Rangers.

One more day and then a break. Hope I can make it. Oh well, it's time for bed none the less. The bargain bin at the house of Satan actually had some decent picks so I'll have to update the movie selections that I just got.

It's truly not worth having a day off in a company where your work isn't covered while you are out. In my office at Pitt, there were 5 or 6 other people that did the stuff I did, at least until I started being a full time special projects bitch. So, prior to that, I could take a day, a long weekend, or a week and come back and there would be no stress about how to prioritize the stuff that was stacking up while I was gone. No emails to go through or at least no important ones. I've spent the past three days prepping for having Friday off. It's going to take me all of Wednesday and Thursday just to pull into being a little behind before I leave. Then depending on internet access throughout the weekend, I could be anywhere from 2-5 days behind when I get back on Monday.
And, although as I scan back recent posts, I realize that people might get the impression that I don't like my job or I'm unhappy. On the contrary, I really like my job and the people I work with. I just wish my clients would lighten up a little bit. There's no reason to push 80 programs live in the span of 3 months. Especially since we're just not completely equipped to deal with that amount of work.

Another great Studio 60 show. It's beginning to make me want to seek out the West Wing and I can't stand politics.
I like the fact that the show is about plagurism. We were discussing that at work today among designers. Apparently, they knew a couple of people in Pittsburgh who were passing off work that wasn't theirs in their portfolio. Now that might fly if you were moving from one city to another or lived in a large area like LA or New York, but the internet industry in Pittsburgh is incestuous. We don't need 6 degrees here in Pittsburgh, we can do it in 3 degrees or less. When I first started out, my portfolio contained two pieces that weren't solely mine. One was a straight co-authorship (that I did the majority of the work on anyway, because I don't play well with others) and the other was a group project that was split in sections that I could attribute correctly. The funny thing was, I ended up using them as less than the projects they should have been because they weren't completely representative of me. I do agree with the sentiment expressed of a writer plagurizing either knowingly or inadvertently. Any decent writer (and by decent I mean remotely moral or dedicated to the craft of writing) won't even come close to taking an idea or a concept let alone the words that express them.

So the Pens are 1-1 which is still a large improvement over last season. And, although it's certainly still a big question mark over the season, it's hard to hang a 2-0 loss on the goaltender, especially when he's not to blame for either shot.
Interestingly enough, I ran into an old college friend when I saw him flash across the jumbo-tron at the hockey game. So, I ended up at a dinner on Friday night with 30 college students, most of whom are a decade or more younger than I am. It also got me out of bed on a 6:30 Saturday morning to see the first morning of fall rolls for buggy. Of course, since Tom was in town I managed to drag him out too. Then he, Gage, and I came back home and took a nice mid-morning nap. That gave us enough energy to make the Detroit/Pens game on Saturday night. And, through various circumstances, I still haven't sat in the season seats that I paid for. I'm 4 for 4 in not making my own seats.

OPENING NIGHT BABY!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Birthday Mom, Mario, Patrick, John, and Sarah.

Just to start the taunting a tad early...Go Home Flyers!

Tonight is the season premiere of Veronica Mars. If you haven't seen the show before, it's a good time to start. The CW has only picked up half a season and they need to build an audience fast. Otherwise, this will be another one of those shows cancelled before it's time. And, it's a really good show. I have seasons 1 and 2 on DVD and it's by far better than most of the television that the other networks are throwing at you. Hopefully it will build off the Gilmore Girls audience (which I'm told is also a good show) and get picked up for the full season. Well in any case, one guy on the LaPlaca will be happy if it gets cancelled. I don't know if that's a good sign or a bad sign that only one person picked it. Well, it's off to get some things accomplished, break for Veronica Mars, get more stuff done and hopefully make it into bed before 1.

Spamalot was good. Unless you ask Terri. Can you transplant a sense of humor? Geesh. It was interesting to see the updates from the movie to the play. Although a lot of the shock value that used to be inherent in things like that has been diminished by shows like South Park.
Well, so far, my new plan for time planning hasn't quite taken off. I hope to get it into full swing tomorrow, but we'll see. It's kind of sad that I don't actually have time to put my time management plan into action. Oh well, time to chuck it all and go watch Studio 60.
P.S. Still a damn good show, three episodes in. I'm not a big fan of ending on the musical montage. I'm hoping that's not a Sorkin trademark. Also, since I missed Banned Books week to talk about it, here's my quote, and I'm paraphrasing here (if someone finds the actual quote, I'll be happy to amend)..."When you find out a book is being banned, walk, no run to your library, the book store, wherever you can find that book and don't stop til you've read it cover to cover to find out what they don't want you to know." Stephen King

Well, Terri knows now and I guess I can actually blog about it with no fear.
For our anniversary, I bought Terri season tickets to the Penguins hockey games. Yes, I know, it seems more like a present for me, but she loves the games too. Anyway, in doing that it meant that I had to give away the two home preseason games for two reasons. One, we had other plans both nights and two, it would be a little hard to explain preseason tickets that we typically don't come by. So, I had to part with both of them and boy was it painful. Although in addition to the people that got the tickets, one girl at work truly benefited. With my discount, I got her and her boyfriend seats for his birthday 4 rows off the ice for $120. You're paying over $200 for the seats if you just head over to the box office or ticketmaster. And yes, we must have had a good anniversary, or an extremely boring one. Terri's still sleeping. Although that could be because this is the first full night's sleep she's gotten in months. There are days I feel sorry for Gage for having the same sleep patterns that I do, but I know that for every day where he feels like crap because his body won't let him sleep, there will be multiple days (mostly in college) where he'll be able to just keep going and get everything done that needs to be done. But, in the meantime, that means we (and by we, I mean Terri since he never wakes me up) will just have to deal with the fallout.
Oh, and Matt the Pens play the Flyers at home on October 5th, November 13th, December 13th and March 4th (which is a Sunday afternoon game).

"On Friday nights, I'm bulletproof."

14 Years

14 years of watching you change (for the better of course)
14 years of happy memories
14 years of pretty much being on our own
14 years of hugs and kisses
14 years of dreams and wishes
14 years of friends that stay and friends that go
14 years of days and nights by your side
14 years of the world going by without changing our love
14 years of movies, concerts, sporting events, vacations, and reunions
14 years of a love that isn't going to give up
14 years of proving to everyone else we can make it 14 years
14 years of reflection to the past and to the future
14 years of cd collection (now that's love)
14 years is just a small piece of the lifetime we have left

Here's to many more multiples of 14. I love you now and I'll love you always, Terri. Between now and then til I see you again, I'll be loving you, Love me.

"Any arbitrary turning and I'd be somewhere else entirely." Is that a bad thing or a good thing? That all depends on how happy you are with your current situation I guess.
So, based on a recent conversation..."What's a big scandal in your everyday life?" If you found out your parents had you before they were married and never told you, would that be a big scandal? Granted, that one probably only works if you were a first-born child. If you found out your best friend had a fling the day before he/she was married? The day after? If you were best man or maid of honor at a wedding that didn't happen? Or a wedding that was a complete sham since the couple had run off to Vegas the month before or a year before? What if your boss were gay? A cross-dresser? Just curious as to what might rock a reader's world close to home as opposed to the scandals potrayed by television.

Well, the Pens have only won two of five pre-season games, but both have been against the Flyers so I'm ok with that. I was talking about Malkin at work today and one of the guys who is just a casual follower didn't realize that he had been hurt. So I'm explaining the graphic nature of the fall and he asked if it was a highlight. Since they showed the play over and over, we figured it had to be on YouTube. He pulled up YouTube on his computer and did a simple search on Malkin. It was on the first page of results. Just so everyone's on the same page.

So I'm trying a new approach to life. Nothing to excess anymore. No more 3 AM shifts trying to nail down everything at once. No more than one client per night, if I bring work home at all. Same goes for work at home. Things will get done all in good time. A good list of priorities and vanity projects aside. Hopefully things will start following fast and furious. It's similar to the theory about 45 minutes per night per class. No more, no less and eventually you learn to fit in the work that you have into the time you've allotted. We'll see. I'll start in earnest next week so right now I'm in the midst of tying up the loose ends.

Your Birthdate:

You have a Type A personality so big it makes other Type A's shrink away in shame. You never shy away from adversity - and you love to tackle impossible problems. Failure is not an option for you, and more than a few people are put off by your ego. You tend to be controlling, and you hate leaving anything up to chance. Your strength: Your bold approach to life Your weakness: You don't accept help Your power color: Bronze Your power symbol: Pyramid Your power month: October

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

Somehow, I can't help by wonder how technology can be this far about me. That description couldn't be less truthful if Captain Pirate Head had written it. (For those of you that don't know Captain Pirate Head, he's the McDonald's happy meal toy from the Pirates of the Carribbean movie that mimics a magic 8-Ball. We've discovered he's a habitual liar). The Pens seem to be able to go the distance during the pre-season, they just need to learn how to close it out before or during overtime.

You Should Be a Film Writer

You don't just create compelling stories, you see them as clearly as a movie in your mind. You have a knack for details and dialogue. You can really make a character come to life. Chances are, you enjoy creating all types of stories. The joy is in the storytelling. And nothing would please you more than millions of people seeing your story on the big screen!

What Type of Writer Should You Be?

Guess I should throw that whole novelist notion out the window then.

Should I be concerned that instead of a cuddly stuffed bear or a toy truck, Gage runs around with little stuffed Pinky and the Brain dolls singing the theme song and yelling, "Narf!"?
It was nice to see the Pens semi-dominate the Flyers. It's hard to get a good sense considering most of the big big guns weren't on the ice. Although we saw Evgeni Malkin for about half a game. Then came his collision with John LeClair and subsequent trip to the hospital. No one seems to have any news. Ray Shero, who seemed to be smirking a little too much for my tastes, said that Malkin was cleared to fly home and be re-evaluated by doctors in Pittsburgh. So, hopefully it will be something easily fixed by hanging out for a few days and he'll be ready for opening night. And, I know that the commercial blocks were bought in advance, but I certainly didn't need to see the Malkin promo announcing "The Wait is Over." every other commercial break.
Oh well, the Pens are at .500 right now and that's certainly better than last season. So, we'll see how things continue in the pre-season. It'll be interesting to see what the final roster is going to look like.

Studio 60 certainly lived up to the hype. Excellent show. It's a shame they can't keep Judd Hirsch and Felicity Huffman around longer. I'm not quite decided on Stephen Weber and Sarah Paulson, but I'm along for the ride. I think I'm going to try and catch the premieres for 6 Degrees and 30 Rock as well as catching up on the second season of Veronica Mars.
Also, it was nice to once again see my genes come out in Gage. I raced out of work at exactly 6:00 this evening. I got home right around 6:30 and Gage was sitting in his chair in the living room. He was getting ready to watch Dragon Tales and I persuaded him to let me change the channel for just a minute to show him something. What did I want to show him?
HOCKEY BABY!!!!!!!
That's right. Penguin's pre-season hockey started this evening. As soon as Gage saw Sidney Crosby step on the ice, cartoons were completely forgotten about. Sadly, the Pens dropped the game, but I saw good things from some of their draft picks and young players. I still think we need a go-to goaltender. Fleury isn't there. Not yet. Maybe never. Who knows?

Tonight is Studio 60's premiere so I'm going to try to catch that. Hopefully I'll be able to see a few new shows here and there this year. Last year was the worst year of network television for me. I don't think there was one show that I watched regularly. In fact, I think the only thing that I caught the majority of the episodes for was Entourage and I certainly didn't catch all those when they first aired. Thankfully HBO reruns them over and over. I'm still working on making it through the second season of Veronica Mars.

On Thursday night we headed to the Warner's house for dinner. Gage had resisted napping all day so, of course, he fell asleep before we got there. So, Katie had to wait for her playmate to wake up. Andrew is getting big and crawls very quickly. Gage and Katie seemed to have a wonderful time playing together. We managed to get hold of someone at the Mutchler household and that someone was, Alison! She's home. Still not 100%, but getting there. So that was good news.
Friday I left work early and went to the memorial service that Carnegie Mellon held for the 7 alumni who were lost 5 years ago on September 11th. Oddly enough I ran into a very old friend, Erik Larson, that I hadn't seen in quite a while. So, I got to catch up with Erik and be swayed toward doing more alumni related things for the University. Erik is on the board of directors or some such council. I guess I probably should consider it. I certainly don't have the money to pour back into the University, I guess I should give it some time. After that, I drove home, picked up Terri and Gage and headed out to our Pastor's house for a meeting of the 20's and 30's. Our church is very small so they are attempting to group us together in order to have us become more invovled in the life of the church. It was interesting to actually interact with them on a social level. It was a point that was brought up at the meeting. We certainly know one another to see each other, but we didn't really interact on any level other than, "Hi, how are you?" I learned a lot during the meeting.
Saturday I ended up getting a call early in the morning from my brother asking for help rearranging things in his storage locker. I found out that my mother's washer had broken and the service guy couldn't make it til Thursday. So my brother wanted to get his washer out of storage until Thursday and then switch them back. The problem is that his washing machine was all the way in the back. Before I could talk him out of it, he was already there and had a large pathway uncovered toward it. So for the next several hours we hoisted boxes and furniture around and over and through the maze of things in order to free up a washing machine for 4 days that, when we arrived home, I realized he hadn't asked my parents about. Sometimes I wonder about my family.

Lots to blog about in the upcoming days about past events if you can follow that. Just need a few minutes to sit down and sort it all out. I thought that was going to be today, but I ended up helping my brother rearrange a storage locker for no apparent reason.

Apparently now WebMD is tracking my every movement. Terri got stuck working two late nights this week. Yesterday was no problem. Her mom was able to babysit. Wednesdays seem to be horrible for our families. Terri's mom has bowling. Terri's dad still can't get around very well on his tendon. Her sister has class. Her brother doesn't get home in time. My mom has church meetings on Wednesday. My brother is working. My sister-in-law is working. That leaves my dad with my niece and he can't handle two. So, I had to leave work early in order to relieve Gage's babysitter. So, I was up late last night trying to give myself a jump on today's work. Then I raced around all day trying to accomplish a large volume of work. Right before I left, I grabbed a stack of stuff that I wasn't going to get done. I flew home as quickly as I could. Then after my in-laws left, I logged back onto the computer and continued working as I was watching Gage. So, I basically traded about 45 minutes in the office for 3 hours at home. I stopped for a while and read Gage some stories. I come back to the computer and there's an email from WebMD and the subject line is, "Are you burning the candle at both ends?" I'm sure I am, but I don't need someone looking over my shoulder telling me that.

Ah, yet another copy of the Star Wars Trilogy. At some point George Lucas has to just cry uncle and stop this nonsense, right? Right? I mean the only thing left is the holiday special. One thing I discovered while adding them to my dvdaf page is that the DVD editions of Trivial Pursuit are listed. If only they'd start listing CD's, I'd be set.

5 years. I know that people always talk about the events that stand out so much in history that one can remember where they were, what they were wearing, and to some extent a lot of little ordinary details that it's difficult to retain on any other day. Sure I remember where I was. I remember who I was with. I remember watching news channels hoping for the calming voice, the one that would tell me that everything was fine. But everything wasn't fine. And in a lot of ways things haven't been the same since. There are a lot of theorists that point to evidence forewarning of us that day 5 years ago. Could it have been prevented? I don't know. I can't say. I do know that hindsight's 20/20 and instead of laying blame and pointing fingers in a partisan country, the legacy of that day should be what it was on that day 5 years ago. One America. Bruised, battered, but never broken. Agree or disagree with whatever political party you ascribe to, but know that at the heart of all of it, we're Americans. Yankees, Rebels, Rednecks, Yuppies, Left, Right, Center, Wackos, Straight, Gay, Confused, it doesn't matter. This day should serve to make America..."one nation, under God, indivisble, with liberty and justice for all"

Several of Terri's relatives were in town for the Steeler's opener and a couple of them stuck around so Friday night we headed down to my in-laws to have dinner and hang out. Since several of them are Pitt graduates, they had the Pitt game on. We were watching Gage run around outside playing with a new pet goose and having fun. When it got dark, he came inside and was showing off for the new people. We heard the ABC's, counting, parts of the body, days of the week, lots of songs and various other things that he knows. Terri's Aunt Kathy started to laugh. She had been dismissing my mother-in-law in several phone conversations..."Sure, Gage is a bright boy. I totally believe you." After listening to him for a couple of hours she was amazed at his vocabulary and knowledge. It's nice to have validation. It makes me feel like one thing is going correctly in my life currently. Of course, I probably can't actually take credit for any of Gage's good things. I'm probably more to blame for the temper and insomnia.

I'm not sure why, but I'm certainly a sucker for the countdown type shows. Over the past couple days, I've had the 20 great Southern Rock songs countdown and AFI's 100 Years 100 Cheers movie countdown. I may not always agree with the choices, but I usually come across something that I should pick up for my own collection or something I may have missed entirely. My complaint with most of these shows are the talking heads. Usually they manage to get people who were somehow connected or purport to be "experts" in whatever field that they happen to be covering. But, then they have these random people and you have to wonder why. Why exactly do they have Jessica Alba commenting on inspirational movies? Was the Fantastic Four just itching to crack into the top ten? I'm not even sure it could crack into the top million. Melissa Etheridge? At least Ralph Macchio had a reason to be there. The Karate Kid clocked in at #98. Sean Astin got to stick around because Rudy clocked in at #54. Oh well. Although I'm not sure that Babe deserves a place and Miracle does not, but I'm a little biased in that case.

It's amazing how good they can make Pittsburgh look on tv. My daily commute takes me right past Heinz Field twice a day. Yet, I watch the coverage on television (I'm watching Martina McBride, not the game, nobody panic) and I barely recognize the place. If I couldn't hear the fireworks burst outside in real time, I would claim it's being staged somehow. Oh and note to the coordinators...Pittsburgh fans boo the opposing team when they take the field/ice/whatever. I'm not proud of it and I only indulge for the Devils, Capitals, Flyers, and whatever team Jagr is on. But, you might not want to have the opposing team take the field during the procession of soldiers and the unfurling of the American Flag field graphic. Just a helpful hint so that Pittsburghers don't look even more dumber than usual. We don't need no help in that department. Especially since I'm sitting in traffic this morning and I'm staring at an electronic billboard. The first "ad" has a guy in a black and gold mask and the text says, "Tonight 8:30." Makes sense though I doubt there's anyone in town who didn't know that. Hell, coma patients had spikes of activity today. The second one is an ad for the local health system. The third one is the same guy in the black and gold mask. This time the text says, "Squish the Fish." I begin running the few teams that I can remember in my mind. Eagles, Chargers, Jets, Giants, Seahawks, Raiders...no acquatic life that I can recall. So, I figured if I turned off my CD figuring that no matter what station I'm on within three minutes I'd find out who the opponent is. Well, I had to listen to Mayor O'Connor's funeral route through the city, an update on Ben and then they announced that kick-off for the Steelers/Dolphins was 8:30 but please be seated by 8:00. I'm sure at this point the people around my car were wishing they had flak jackets. I started punching the steering wheel and screaming obscenities into the air. Why so irate you might ask? Well, just in case the explanation didn't click for you as it did for me, here's a reference. It's only necessary to read the FIRST FREAKIN' SENTENCE! That's why Pittsburgh don't need any help looking more dumber than the average bear.

I found out several interesting facts today. Even though I knew that they were in production for the filming of the Michael Chabon book "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh," I did not know that a) they were currently filming and b) they were currently filming in Pittsburgh. I found both facts out this morning when one of our vp of sales came bursting into the kitchen talking about how they were using her backyard to film a dinner sequence for the movie. So, tomorrow evening she'll be watching Mena Suvari, Peter Sarsgaard, and Sienna Miller hanging out in her backyard. Apparently they are also filming a car chase sequence on her street. Man, I have got to find time to read that book quick. Of course, if you think I'll find the time, I'll refer you to yesterday's post.

Where exactly does time go. When I was a kid I remember waking up one morning and seeing that it was pouring down rain. I started reading a library book I had checked out. I finished it. I started a second one. I finished it. I made my mother brave the rain to take me to the library. I got more books. I started a third one. I finished it. I started a fourth one. I finished it. Then I had dinner watched television and went to bed where I started a fifth book. Today while I was sitting in traffic I managed to read a paragraph and I celebrated my little victory. Granted, I didn't have this computer around back then, but even still I log on, skim my email, click through the blogs to the right hand side, and two hours is gone. I just don't understand it. It's not that I've suddenly entered a time warp because some days at work still drag on forever and ever, but lately there isn't enough time to even evaluate all the stuff I'd like to get done never mind actually trying to get it done. And we're still talking seriously about a second child. I have no idea. Maybe it's my personality that I just have to have stuff stacked up to do, but it's not like it shouldn't get done. It's not like I've decided to revisit my baseball card collection from the ninth grade, go through, have it graded and sell it on ebay. I'm trying to go through mail that has shown up in my house in the past week, pull out the bills, and get them paid.

Wow, the week went by so fast I didn't even realize all the stuff that I've been neglecting. This blog for one. Last Friday I worked from about 7-1 on work, Saturday from about 6-2, Sunday 6-2, Monday 7-1, and Tuesday 7-3. Once I got home on Wednesday night I was pretty crashed. I actually went to bed before midnight both Wednesday and Thursday. That meant I didn't really log on to my computer until Saturday of this past weekend during the day. It was nice.

Apparently I must look like death warmed over. I've had three different people in three completely different situations tell me that I should see a doctor in just the past week alone. Of course it doesn't help that I can't remember the last time I actually saw my doctor. Maybe I should schedule a physical. Maybe they'll tell me that I have some weird disabling disease that will put me on workmen's comp for the rest of my life. I don't know if I'm coping better or worse than some of my coworkers. I took a couple of boxes of work home over the weekend and as I was leaving one of my coworkers saw me. He freaked out and thought I was quitting. I guess it's nice to be wanted. In a conversation with one of the newer people, it was mentioned that August was typically a slow month. I agreed and said that was why I was trying to get a jump on my work by taking it home. It was asked what was going to happen when it really started to get busy. I said that those who were aware were already preparing and those that weren't were standing on the train tracks going, "What's that noise?"

So Barry Manilow, hot off his Emmy win last night went in for double hip surgery today. Hopefully all went well. I wonder if he actually took his Emmy to the hospital for good luck? I watched the Emmy telecast. I didn't think it was too bad. I'm very disappointed that Julia Louis-Dreyfus won. Granted the category was a little weak...um, Lisa Kudrow? At the very least it should have gone to Debra Messing as a parting gift. I didn't have any strong pull toward any one win or loss I guess. That's what happens when you don't have time to watch network television much anymore. I realized that I only followed one series in real time through it's season and that was Entourage. Everything else I either caught up on through DVD's or caught sporadic episodes here and there. Speaking of random episodes, Psych is a good show in case I haven't mentioned it before.

Every once in a while something will slip past the big picture recognition and I'll end up looking it up and having that ah ha moment when it all clicks into place. When I saw the musical production of Jonathan Larson's Rent, it was in Pittsburgh so needless to say I didn't see the original cast. But, I was so taken by the orchestration and the music that I decided to buy the CD. Trust me, it was a rough decision. I don't buy many CDs. Anyway, the CD did have the original cast. Idina Menzel, who coincendentally is also on the Wicked cast CD that I bought after seeing the Pittsburgh production. I'd love to switch out Kendra Kessebaum with Kristen Chenoweth on the CD, but that's another story. Anyway, after listening to Anthony Rapp, who plays Mark on both the CD and in the movie version of Rent, I thought that he sounded familiar. And, when I saw the movie version, I thought he looked familiar, but I didn't think much of it since the name didn't really ring a bell. Then after seeing the movie again last night and finding it on again today (gotta love the satellite) I decided to see where I knew him from. Turns out he was the loud-mouthed friend from Adventures In Babysitting. Bizarre.
Why is doing what you love to do and getting paid big money for it selling out to a certain sect of artists?

Head over to The Mutchler's blog to see some pictures of new baby Nicholas. And Matt, 3 is not plenty.
For the first time since 2002, I'm sitting in Pennsylvania on the last weekend in August. No one that I know that normally attends the Nascar race in Bristol is actually attending this year. Trust me, I like watching the race on television, but Bristol is so much better live. Hopefully all my drivers will perform well and win me some cash since I didn't make it down this year. One of the things that I really miss is flipping back and forth on the scanner and listening to the drivers. Bristol is a half-mile track with 165,000 people packed around it. There are 43 cars that when running nose to tail take up most of the track so when you get bumped for position you lose a lot of space. I would have loved to be listening to Tony Stewart's scanner when he got bumped and lost 11 spots because there was no opening in line.

Well I didn't manage to get all the BMG stuff done last night, it was crazy! It's like being told you can only have one piece of candy shopping in the Sweets From Heaven at the local mall, not one kind of candy but one piece! I mean one piece! One total piece! With myriad decisions to make, just one piece! Craziness!!!!
Disclaimer: The post above was brought about due to the fact that I can...ha! ha!

Short post tonight. I have much research to do. BMG is running their buy 1 get 3 free special. That's the only one I take advantage of because it's the only one that breaks down to be worth it.

Since I feel bad that my rant probably overshadowed the announcement of Matt and Alison's new baby Nicholas, hopefully this will make up for it.

A Mother and Father's Prayer

I know you’re listening as I lay me down to sleep
It’s not for me I ask, but my children’s souls to keep
It seems the world is going crazy
And though I need to do my share
Could you please take them under wing
Watch over them especially
Keeping them safe from everything
This is a mother’s prayer
I know you’re listening in the silence of the night
The news is blistering but I hold on to your light
And though there’s darkness all around us
By my faith I know you’re there
Give me the strength to lead the way
Send me the words I need to say
Use me to guide them day to day
This is a mother’s prayer
This is a father’s prayer
I know I can’t do this by my self
I thank you for your help
I know you’re listening so I know I’m not alone
I feel you here with me as we all face down the unknown
Could you return us to your garden
Where no one’s hurt and no one’s scared
Free us from pride and bitterness
Keep us so close we won’t forget
Teach us to love as you love
This is a mother’s prayer
This is a father’s prayer
Teach us to love as you love
This is a mother’s, a father’s prayer

Congratulations to Matt, Alison, and Nathan welcoming Nicholas Ian into the world today! Our circle of friends is ever widening.
Based on the wonderful news we headed out to do some DVD shopping, more about that later. I want to talk about the in-between DVD stop because it set me up for a great let down based on the rest of the evening. Anyone who knows me knows about my media lists. I have lists for books, cds, dvds, etc. Well my book list goes with me anytime I'm headed within a 1/2 mile of a used bookstore. It has things I'm looking for, collections to fill out, missing books from favorite authors, recommendations and just things in general that I wouldn't pay full price for. Two collections that I've been working on for quite a while have been the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books. There are several incarnations of each, but the original series have gone through a dozen or more printings. I wanted the hardback versions that I read as a child. At Half-Price Books, these are classified as Vintage and Classic books and typically cost a little more, but it's usually worth it. So, over the course of many many trips, I've picked up all the original Hardy Boys (total of 58) and I had picked up 55 of the 56 Nancy Drew originals. I've been looking for #56 for a long long time. Tonight, shining with it's own little light on the Vintage shelf was #56. It was great. Then I was skimming the Stephen King section and there was "The Road to the Dark Tower." I had previously bought two copies of this book. One for Tom and one for Matt. When I went to get my own copy, I couldn't locate it readily so I figured I'd just wait for it to reappear. It took til now. Both of these finds made me think I was going to pick up my sought after DVD and be on my way in time to watch an episode or two.
I swear the DVD people are out to screw me over any way they possibly can. When a new set of DVDs comes out, the first place I check is Costco. They typically have the cheapest prices. Then it's a toss-up between Best Buy and Target. So, typically if I'm out DVD hunting these are my three stops at Robinson. Well, I headed to Costco for the second season of Veronica Mars which came out today. I want to make sure that we're caught up before the third season starts so we can actually watch a show in real time. So I cruise through all the DVDs at Costco. No Veronica Mars. Not a huge deal, they don't always get anything in. But they do have all 3 seasons of the original Star Trek series for $45 apiece. That's the cheapest I've seen them by far. And they have the first six seasons of the Simpsons for $15 apiece. So I had to exercise my willpower and just walk away.
So, I head over to Best Buy. I look in the New Releases, but there's a big gaping hole where Veronica Mars is supposed to be. No biggie, they usually file them in two or three places. I go to the regular shelves. Three copies of the first season, no second season. And they are nowhere to be found in the rest of the store. But of course, season 4 of 24 is on sale. Now I'm a bit peeved. So we head over to Target. Two places with signs advertising the second season arriving today...two holes right above the signs. Again no copies to be found, but Arrested Development is on sale. So now I've been to three places and seen sales at all three that on any normal day would already be sitting on my shelf, but still not the purchase I wanted. So, I had to break down and go to the ghetto Wal-Mart. They had it filed in two places one was empty. The second had two copies left. Boy are they lucky.

So I had Batman Begins on in the background while I was working on the computer tonight. During a couple of exchanges this quote gets thrown around, "It's not who you are on the inside, but what you do that defines you." Seems harmless enough on the surface, but does that mean that you can do charitable works, give of your time and energy and be a demented psychopathic serial killer on the inside? Somehow that seems to undermine the implication behind the statement. Of course on the other hand that could mean that Britney Spears and Paris Hilton are actually Nobel Prize winners on the inside, but they are defined by their actions so we see them as vapid morons. I'm pretty sure that it's the inside persona that manifests itself on the outside in some magnitude or other. For example, you could be an incredibly honest and caring person on the inside, but be relatively shy so it's manifested in small gestures like holding the door for the person behind you or giving blood. Small things that, on the whole, go unnoticed by the public at large. I think that in order to do good you have to have some measure of good within you to begin with. Maybe I've just been awake a little too long.

Well, I knew it was bound to happen sooner or later. For about 10 hours today, I've been working on listing and integrating the books that I've acquired recently. And, I've run out of room on the shelves I have. It looks as though I need to start looking into a 10th set of bookshelves. I don't know if the space actually exists in the library though. It's going to take some careful measuring. And, until I figure out how to fit one in here and actually purchase and assemble it, I still have the problem of having about 50 just sitting on the floor. So much for finishing that task today.

Well it's almost Friday. Then hopefully we'll get somewhere in the vicinity of a half-day or so to work around the house. Saturday we're supposed to head to my parent's for a barbecue so that will pretty much kill the entire day. By the time we get home from church and get Gage down for a nap, 1/2 of Sunday is gone so I'm right back into the week. It almost makes me want to just work straight through. My goals this weekend...Straighten up the library and integrate and list the stacks of new books laying around, hopefully mow the lawn and get a little weed whacking down and hopefully get some of the financing down to push us toward larger goals. Oh and then there's that whole exercise thing, relaxing, the stack of DVD's that grow bigger, the race and so on and so on.

So years ago I worked for a small start-up firm that dealt mostly with affiliate marketing (read borderline scams). The company could have been something really good, but it was being held back by one significant force...the President and CEO. That is a whole different story. This story deals with the fact that with the user testing and product searches that I did back then. This was before spam and junk mail really blew up into a cottage industry. So, for a month or two on the job, I was actually filling out all of the testing materials as a user. As such, attached to my personal email account I had profiles at dating sites, Netflix, enewsletters, and various other crap. As soon as my personal email started stacking up, I quickly set up a trail of dummy accounts. Now, probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 years or so I still see remnants of that job. I'll get emails and snail mail mailings from Netflix asking me to reopen my membership (which, as a test, was cancelled less than 1 hour after completion...that should tell you how long data mining and user profiling sticks around on their end) and at this point since my isp switched mailing domains, I'll get mail from the old domain, but certain sites...two in particular don't recognize the forwarding while attempting to cancel the membership profile to get the hell off the list. After multiple attempts to cancel profiles on two dating sites, I finally gave up. Typically it's a once a week email to show me my new "matches" so I figured I could live with hitting the delete button twice as opposed to the half-hour I lost on hold to one of them.
Now, either one of the sites is truly attempting to get me back or someone thought an inactive, incomplete, and pictureless profile compiled in less than 5 minutes was interesting. I got an email stating I had a personal message and should log right in and check it out.
Normally I think...plot to reacquire my membership...and delete. This email, however, had a picture, username, description, and the message. So, I'm uncertain. The message is just vague enough, but they spelled the word "profile" wrong in the first sentence. So, I feel like it's not an auto send from a database, but really...would they go to lengths that great to get me to log in to the site? The other choice also not that appealing. There really is a 36 year old woman in western PA that thinks I'm "very smart and attractive" based on crap I made up to blow off stuff at work.

So we've been having a discussion (actually, can you call it a discussion if it takes place in the midst of typing emails, answering client calls and interacting with other employees?) about the beaches of Hawaii. My partner just returned and was discussing the white sand beaches to which another pod-mate replied that all of that was brought in from somewhere else. So a google and wikipedia tour later, nothing is overly solved. Then we were into what comprised a white sand beach. Was it calcium and carbonate or decomposed sea-life and shells or limestone or quartz or something else altogether. And now that I think about it, is it really a discussion if it has no point?
We actually have feeler emails out to the department of land and natural resources in Hawaii and the travel bureau. AAA was no help and calling the info desk at Pitt just met with laughter.
Any first hand knowledge out there?

When work intrudes at home and home completes the circle by intruding at work and everything is a screaming level 5 priority with all the red exclamation points beside it, where do you begin? Well, you do like I did on Saturday and you just shut down. I did not accomplish one meaningful thing on Saturday. Which would have been great if I could have just picked up Sunday and not thought about it, but of course there was guilt about blowing stuff off and all the time that I could have been doing something else. If time stood still starting right now...I'd catch up somewhere around 2010 with everything.

Ah, I guess it is August. Which means that the parents of the world have already seen the arrival of fall oriented things in the store and began to give thought to the Halloween costume choices available this year. The Folks over at De Stijl have a little girl who is slightly younger than Gage. They have a little costume pool going on over there. Terri and I haven't discussed it much yet this year. Last year's Yoda went over really well so we're going to have to see about following it up.

Day 4 Post-Performance After the reading, we headed out into the cool humid as hell night air. We managed to get in touch with Adam and his friend and we met them down near the Port Authority. Adam's friend is incredibly nice, intelligent, and it was great to finally meet her. We decided on the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, although if we had known about the faulty air-conditioning we'd have nixed it in a heart beat. Again, severe heat diminishes appetite. After dinner and conversation we decided to part ways. Times Square has more people milling about at 1 in the morning than Pittsburgh does at 1 in the afternoon. I'm not overly surprised by that, but it's just interesting to see in person.
Day 5 The long way home Once we got up, we made a quick plan of action. Down 10 blocks to the Toys R Us to pick up the exclusive collector's tin of the Star Wars Trivial Pursuit DVD game. Then back to the hotel to cram everything into what little luggage we brought, cab to Penn Station (best $7.00 we spent all trip), and train back to Trenton, light rail back to Camden, walk to the car, pack everything else up and head home. My parents had already left with Gage so we had a clear shot the 300 or so miles back across the state to their house. We left New York somewhere between 10 and 11, by 10 that night we were back in good old Pittsburgh. Of course, that meant that the next morning I had to get back up and go to work.

Day 4 Performance For those of you that don't know, this trip was built around the fact that Terri, Tom and I had tickets to a benefit reading (The Haven Foundation and Doctors Without Borders) given by Stephen King, John Irving, and JK Rowling. So we make it to Radio City and deal with the morons handing out flyers for a Harry Potter conference. I'm not even going to justify it with an explanation. We get inside, find out seats, which aren't bad considering I had never been there and picked off the net. Tom and I spent the time leading up to the performance discussing the three authors. He's not enthralled with Rowling in the least, he's not read any of the books and doesn't take kindly to her being compared to King and Irving as one of the greatest authors. The program lists them as three superstar authors. King has written somewhere in the vicinity of 50 novels. Not that I'm arguing proficiency makes you great (think Harper Lee), but it don't hurt. His views on everyday life and his unique twist in taking the mundane to the macabre and back again have earned him legions of "faithful readers." Irving, not quite as prolific, he's closing in on a dozen novels. However, his reach is far and wide due to several widely successful film adaptations to introduce readers to his books and vice-versa. Rowling has completed 6. According to rumors and straight from the author's mouth she's "well into the 7th novel." Again, I'm not saying that volume = anything, but her 6 books, though massive bestsellers, are all about the same subject in the same world. No stretch of the imagination, if you'll pardon the pun. So to put her in the same league just kind of set both of us on edge. The woman in the front of us was kind of leaning back looking for some way to interject on the subject of Rowling's only redeeming feature being the alleged fact that a new generation will discover other authors through her books, but when the topic shifted back to our start on King, I did some quick math and realized that I was 8 or 9 when I read my first King novel (Pet Sematary). This widened the woman's eyes and completely took the wind out of whatever argument she was gearing up for. Which, was good considering the house lights began to dim and special guest Whoopi Goldberg was announced. She did several minutes praising everyone involved and making the audience laughed. Then she introduced Kathy Bates. Also well received, Kathy did her piece on Stephen King. At the end, they cut to a video montage of interviews, movie clips, and peer observations on King. While they were showing the video, stage hands quickly moved out a platform containing a rural setting onto stage right. King came out and read the pie-eating contest section from the novella that became Stand By Me. Then the house voice introduced Andre Baugher who, in turn, introduced John Irving. Another video and stage left was occupied with a platform resembling a den complete with fireplace. Irving read the selection of roles for the Christmas pageant from "A Prayer for Owen Meaney." The house voice then introduced Jon Stewart who, in turn, introduced JK Rowling. The video segment went by and center stage was replaced with a platform resembling a castle like setting. Rowling read from book 6. Immediately after her segment, Rowling began to take a few pre-selected questions. It was then that I began to realize that the reality of my worst nightmare was unfolding before my eyes.
JK Rowling is a media whore. She enjoyed lording her vague answers over the audience. She's not going to be able to give that up with one more novel and three movie adaptations. My initial thought is that she's going to attempt a book far from Potter and his world, it will initially be received tepidly and then fall flat because her fan base won't understand how to adapt. A slew of bad reviews, more bad press when the paperback hits, comparisons abound and two or three years later and we'll be back in Potter's world. It won't necessarily have him as the focus (though it didn't look as though she'd be able to give that up either) and whatever credibility she would have had will disappear faster than (God help me) Harry wrapping his invisibility cloak around himself.
Thankfully after a couple questions they brought King and Irving back for a few questions posed to them.
Post performance and trip wrap-up tomorrow hopefully.