Working 3 positions at the same job is a tad draining. I promise I'll be back soon with real content and the time to read and catch up. So, bear with me if emails are a tad slow and IMs not returned like normal.

Okay, I wasn't going to log on today, but since all this starts tonight, I wanted to get this up.

Eastern Conference

1. Ottawa Senators
8. Tampa Bay Lightning

2. Carolina Hurricanes
7. Montreal Canadiens

3. New Jersey Devils
6. New York Rangers

4. Buffalo Sabres
5. Philadelphia Flyers

Here are my picks for the East...

Ottawa over Tampa Bay 5 games
Carolina over Montreal 6 games
New Jersey over Rangers 4 games
Buffalo over Philly 7 games

The Western Conference

1. Detroit Red Wings
8. Edmonton Oilers

2. Dallas Stars
7. Colorado Avalanche

3. Calgary Flames
6. Anaheim Mighty Ducks

4. Nashville Predators
5. San Jose Sharks

Here are my picks for the West...

Detroit over Edmonton 5 games
Dallas over Colorado 7 games
Anaheim over Calgary 6 games
San Jose over Nashville 7 games

So, better or worse there it is.

One day soon, I'll post the 2005 NHL Preview picks by ESPN and start making fun of their way off base predictions based on some odd bias they seem to have.

Tomorrow morning, bright and early and early and early are the annual buggy races at Carnegie Mellon. Buggy has best been described as an addiction and every year around the beginning of February my body starts to become severely in tune with the weather from sun-up to 9 AM on Saturdays and Sundays. By the time the first weekend in April comes around, my body starts naturally adjusting my weekends so that I'm up later into the night and earlier in the mornings. When raceday comes around, anticipation spikes to the point where everyone around me thinks I've gone off the deep end. I've mentioned what a royally fucked up week this has been and thankfully most everyone at work has attributed my recent mood swing to those items. Honestly, the whole promotion thing won't truly kick in til Monday.
In the midst of this whole transition period at work, I had my presence requested at 5 meetings for tomorrow. 5. And my outlook calendar clearly has me marked off for a vacation day. It was hinted that maybe if I had some time maybe I could make it in for an hour or two. I gently brought up the point that the company had an alcohol policy and my current project manager soon to be peer colleague just lost it. That was the last time that was mentioned.

Wow, hell of a week. Crazy Monday, Weird Tuesday, and now Bizarro Wednesday. The last time I was called into a conference room on the premise of future discussions about the company, I was shown the door in an "economic downtrend." Today, I was promoted. Tomorrow I have to figure out how to manage 3 separate jobs over the next 2 weeks and then Friday I have to not drink myself silly before the races are over.
Also, the MS Walk is this Sunday, so if you've already donated...thanks. If you haven't, get with the program.

I guess I tend to forget/block-out/repress the fact that I grew up in a situation that was quite different (at least in my mind) from where I am now. I also forget that there are certain cross overs that have access to the "full" story if you will. Mostly because they, much like I, tend to forget/block-out/repress.
I think most people I know would be surprised to find out that not only do I own a gun, I've fired everything from a muzzle-loader to a fully automatic. But, that's my "duality" if you will. I don't have any problems...ok, any major problems with it. I just tend to forget. So, to that end I must apologize to those that aren't inside my head with the circles that spin aimlessly. I guess yesterday's post requires an explanation for the majority of people who actually take the time to read this blog.
First, I want you to go here and read the post from April 18th, 2006. The background information and backstory will then become clear.
My experience with Jen included very little of the troubled past, etc. I met Jen when she was a junior and I was a sophomore. She was many things...captain of the academic league for her school, a cheerleader, intelligent, and a contender for the valedictorian race. She was also extremely articulate and quite beautiful. And, although attached, she had that one last winning item that fell into place...the hot younger sister.
And, then I re-met Jen at the Christmas party in 2003. At this point, we were all a decade or more out of high school. She was married, divorced, and in the midst of bad boyfriend hell. She was in mostly good spirits at the party due to the various "stuff" at the house. This was a completely different Jen and even though there were glimpses of the Jen I remembered, this one was harder for me to rectify. Her "duality" was even harder for me to wrap my head around. And in light of the funeral and all the memories swirling and poking their way to the surface, that manifested itself into yesterday's post. Within minutes of finishing the conversation with Joe, the first sentence kept hammering itself in my head to the point where I couldn't concentrate at work, on the way home, even intruding on the last home hockey game of the season (which I'll get back to at some later date) to the point where, when I sat down to write my normal blog-type post about Easter candy, Sid's 100th point, a new arena, and various other trivialities, that sentence was all that would come out. My mind wanted to rail against the unfairness of it all. 31 year olds are not supposed to die. So, in my way, to try and reconcile both sides of Jen's life and, I guess, ostensively my own I finished the poem. So, not to worry, in a few days I'll be back to my old normal sarcastic bitchy self...at least as far as some of you know.
One thing is for certain, Jen will not soon be forgotten.

A girl I hardly knew, tenuously connected to a past I barely acknowledge.
A day of distraction, a night of diversion, yet something lingers.
Memory snapshots, conversation murmers, faded visions.
Dredging memories that aren't linear, of people that don't match.
Mortality slams home and quickly skips off the selfishness and guilt.
Too young to go, too troubled to stay.
May the found peace outweigh the mourning.

The race in the West is set. The race in the East is pretty much going to come down to the last two games. Once everything is set, I'll make my "spot-on" predictions. Although since I normally pick with my heart instead of my head, I'm usually only working at about 50%. I don't have any clear cut favorites to win the cup, but I certainly have several teams that I don't want to win the cup. Of course, that's probably just in general and not just this year.

Well, Rick DiPietro managed to hold Sidney completely off the board so he'll have to have a 3 point night on Monday in order for us to see his 100th point live and in person. Not out of the realm of possibility. According to early scouting reports, he'll be facing ex-Pens goaltender Garth Snow. Hopefully he'll torch him for a hat trick, but of course I'll settle for 2 goals and an assist or a goal and two assists or three assists or any other combination of 3 points. They'll blow the roof off the dump if he scores 100.

If Sidney Crosby only has an average game on Saturday night, we have a chance to see him score his 100th point of his rookie season. But, see it or not it'll be great to have it happen.
Well, work starts extremely early tomorrow so I'll keep it very short tonight.

So, I've had several conversations, both with readers of the blog and non-readers about the work topic that I broached a few days ago. No, it's not something I've actually been offered. But, I have certainly put some thought into it. It kind of works itself into my idea for clearing up the economic recession in the country. It's one of those things that if you find the right people to work those kind of shifts, then it's a win-win. And it goes one step further to push poverty into the background and bring back the dwindling middle class. I'd go into the whole idea, but I don't want to bore anyone...at least not any more than normal.
I wanted to read this article, but I got distracted and couldn't focus.

Well, the Eastern Conference is almost completely locked up. The principal players can still juggle around a bit, but for the most part 9 and 10 have not been mathematically eliminated, but they are 6 and 7 points out respectively with 5 games left. So, it's doubtful that anyone is going to climb back in.
And, it looks as though Detroit is going to lead the league again. Hopefully they'll fall in the first or second round. I'm not interested in watching them go deep.
The Pens need another goal to tie this game up. Hopefully they won't let me down.

So, if you could retain your current salary and benefits, would you switch your work schedule so that you only worked Friday, Saturday, and Sunday? This comes with its own inherent problems. Chances are your spouse or friends won't have the same schedule, so it would be hard to connect for activities. A weekend getaway would be hard to plan.
Thoughts? Feelings?
"You know what happens. Half the school boycotts. The other half protests."

Went up to a birthday party today. One of the guys that I used to work with has two kids and every April and October he throws a big "birthday" party. The adults are just as plentiful as the kids. So, we make the trek up and now Gage is mobile enough that he can run through the yard and play with the other kids. He had a big day playing in the yard, sliding down the slide, gobbling cake, and just enjoying the day. He crashed hard on the way home in the car. But, then he was up again at the house to watch some Penguin hockey.
Unfortunately, the Pens drop a hard one. That's okay, we play Philadelphia on Tuesday. I mean, that's a guaranteed win, right?

Wow, after 12 straight losses to the Florida Panthers, we're half a period away from breaking their streak. We've even chased Roberto Luongo from the net. Sidney Crosby has hit 90 points on the season. He's got 6 games left to get 9 points after his 4 point performance tonight.
And they've snapped the streak, so that's the end of that nonsense. In addition to the end of the winning streak, I believe they've all but mathematically eliminated the Panthers from making the playoffs. Which means that it's getting closer and closer to having the Eastern Conference set. Interesting.
I'm even more on the verge of getting season tickets next year than I was this year and this year I went so far as to talk to a ticket rep. So, who knows.
Too many things, not enough money.

A fairly productive day (outside of the house anyway). Too bad the rest of the week won't shape up as nice. It now looks as though we're booked Saturday and Sunday as well as tomorrow night for odds and ends. And I've noticed green grass sprouting in the yard which means that never ending battle is about to begin anew. Why couldn't yesterday's frost have killed all the vegetation. I'd rather have everything dead in the yard than alive.

After running the video production board through two presentations today, I have newfound respect for Sports Night. The fact that they were able to keep everything together on a live show was amazing (even if it was fictional, it certainly mirrored actual live television). We made our first mistake about 10 seconds into the presentation. Thankfully everything smoothed out quickly.
The new Red Roof Inn commercials have practically guaranteed that I won't stay there.
Well, last night was a night where a Pittsburgh Penguins fan simply hopes the rink implodes. Philadelphia vs. the NY Rangers. And, in a nice bizarro universe, the Rangers have managed to make it into the playoffs for the first time this century.
The race in the East is close to being set. Atlanta in 9th is 7 points out. That's 4 straight wins with no wins by Tampa Bay. That's pretty hard to come by this time of year. I haven't checked the west recently, but I'll probably have some time later this week to break things down when all 16 places are set and make some of my famously horrible picks. With hockey I usually end up picking with my heart and not my head. That's why I'm so terrible at fantasy hockey. I was even horrible at the stiffs league that I was in one year.
And, even though it means relatively little to us, it's great to see Brodeur torched for a goal 27 seconds into the game.

Now that April Fools has past, I can put this post up without anyone mistaking it for a joke. Not that anyone would, but rarely do I express serious interest in a serious cause. Sure, I'll be the first one to jump on the bandwagon to bar Jennifer Lopez from ever making a movie or album again, and although that's a fairly serious cause, this one kind of outranks it.
It's April and that means one thing. Well, actually it means many things...it's Terri's birthday month, both of my uncles have birthdays in April, buggy, Easter this year, the start of playoff hockey, but the one thing I'm referring to in this case is the MS Walk.
Multiple Sclerosis is a chronic disease of the central nervous system affecting the brain and spinal cord and usually strikes adults between the ages of 20 and 50. MS affects vision, balance, cognitive function, strength, and movement. Symptoms can include extreme fatigue, headaches, blurred vision, frequent falls, depression, and painful neuropathy. Though there are promising treatments on the horizon, there is no cure for MS.
As many of you already know, Terri and I started raising money and walking in the MS Walk in 1998 when I started working with Mark at Lycos. Mark's wife Robyn has MS. My cousin Kathy was also diagnosed with MS around the same time. Kathy passed away in December of 2003 and though MS wasn't the primary cause, the complications that it created certainly aided in her passing. Kathy was only 33 when she died. At the time, I mused that it's a cruel twist of fate that a parent, any parent, has to bury a child. With MS, that can be all too frequent.
So, in order to help Robyn (and countless others) and to remember and honor Kathy, Terri and I raise money, walk, and donate to the MS society.
Why am I telling you all this? To hit you up for money of course. It's a good cause, it's tax deductible (for those that are already planning ahead for next year), and it'll give you the warm and fuzzies. I know that a lot of charities pop up around the springtime and if my mail is any indication, your alma maters are also banging on the door. If you find yourself torn between the new Prince CD and giving money to your college to waste on 100 foot sculptures or some such nonsense...do yourself a favor. Give some money to a worthwhile cause and you may end up saving someone's life.
You can sponsor me online here.
Or, you can sponsor Terri here.
If you are squeamish about donating online, you can certainly reach me through all the usual methods.
Thanks in advance for your participation, generosity, and concern in this matter.

Well, I did make it out to buggy yesterday and noticed that they were running in the normal efficiency range. Which meant they had the clothing order forms and they are due tomorrow. Apparently my presence was enough to warrant a quick email reminding alumni that races are coming up and the clothing order form was attached. Somehow I don't think we'd of gotten the email otherwise.