So, last night I watched The Ringer with Johnny Knoxville. Now out of the movies I've seen this week, Brokeback dropped down to 7. I imagine it's going to take a while before something actually overtakes the last spot.
Today I got an email from a girl that I worked with at Pitt. She wanted to know how Gage's birthday had gone and she expressed disbelief and amazement over the fact that it's been 2 years already. Then she proceeded to tell me (in the email) that our old boss at Pitt had passed away over the weekend. Apparently she passed away sometime over the weekend and her niece found her on Monday. I can't believe it. They're supposed to keep me informed so that we can go to a viewing. I'm kind of shocked and surprised. She was older, but not that old. We had at least two ladies in the department that were older than she was. She certainly wasn't in the best of health, but again there were worse in the department. A very odd year thus far.

Well, Gage had a good birthday party. It was a gorgeous day. He got a sliding board, a trip to the Children's Museum, more bubbles than his grandkids will be able to use, a hockey set (that he took the stick to bed with him), the entire Upper Deck Series 1 Hockey Set (including Sidney Crosby Rookie Card), lots of books and clothes, and a ton of other stuff that I'm forgetting right now.
Sunday, Gage hung out at home and recovered while everyone else went to see X-3. It wasn't too bad. Sunday night we watched the movie Waiting with Ryan Reynolds. Also, not too bad. On Monday, we headed down to Dek's parent's house for a little memorial day picnic. Their house is gorgeous. Gage had a great time doing laps around the living room and running around on the deck. Then he got to swim in a nice cool indoor pool. He then proceeded to give everyone a heart attack by running along the side of the pool. Turns out when I have a push off, I can move pretty fast in the water. Imagine if I was a strong swimmer.
Monday night while Gage relaxed from another full day, Terri and I decided to watch Brokeback Mountain (provided by Tom's Netflix account). Let's just say that out of the three movies I saw this weekend, this one ranks 6th behind X-3, Waiting, the hockey game, a rewatch of Harry Potter 3, and the start of the Pirates game. Crap, crap, beautiful scenery, and more crap. There were only two sets of 4 reasons that people might want to watch this movie. Anne Hathaway and Michelle Williams appear topless for a brief second. That's the first 4 reasons for 1/2 the movie-going population. Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhall appear bottomless from the back for a brief second. That's the second 4 reasons for the remaining movie-going population. For those of you that know me, you'll know the homosexuality themes in the movie don't even register on my radar. It's not a shocking story. What did shock me was the fact they made such a huge deal about a "love-affair that lasted 20 years" and how heart rendering it was. Huh? First off, I barely bought the fact these guys were friends, let alone lovers. As for lasting twenty+ years, did people not notice that Gyllenhall's character not only cheated on his wife, but cheated on Ledger's character too? I'm not sure how that defines true love or makes a compelling story for that matter.
This was sad news I missed this weekend.

Well out of the last 48 hours, I've been up about 42ish. So, a short post. Gage's party went well. Lots of people made the trek out into the country and as far as I could tell everyone seemed to enjoy themselves so that's good.
Off to X-Men tomorrow. Maybe a longer post. I doubt I'm going to make it to the end of the game, but it'll be interesting to hear about the outcome of the Ducks/Oilers game.

So Gage had his two year appointment at the doctor's today.
He's 34 1/4 inches tall (45th percentile)
He's 25 lbs (25th percentile)
and his head is 51 cm (90th percentile)
Hopefully he'll be able to hold up that big honkin' head at his party.

In what seems like the blink of an eye, we've advanced from a Saturday afternoon in the early fall of 2003 to May of 2006 and in that time, we've gone through a pregnancy and advanced a child to the age of 2. Going back to campus for Susie's graduation didn't make me feel as old as I thought it would. There are times during buggy where I feel ancient. The reality is, I'm fairly young in the grand scheme of things. And yet almost 3 years have flashed by so fast it's become merely anecdotal (did I tell you about the day we found out we were pregnant, about when my office found out we were pregnant, about when we told our families, about making it to the hospital, about life-saving friends, about Gage's almost first trip out of the house, about his first word, about comparisons to Michigan J. Frog, about his hockey obsession, his Bert and Ernie obsession, and on and on).
The Pens have named Ray Shero as the new GM. I have no real comment on that. I know very little about the man. Although his dad apparently coached Philadelphia to their only two Stanley Cups, but seriously that was what...87 years ago?

So I'm in the middle of a tense third period between Buffalo and Carolina. Carolina has just pulled within one in Buffalo's building. The fans are screaming, Edzo is straining to be heard above all the noise and Terri yells, turn on 53 (which is the Fox affiliate in our area for those not in the know), so I flip the station expecting to find the news story about the rail road trestle we were discussing earlier. Instead I find Prince, yes Prince, on American Idol. I hesitate to comment any further since I'm still in quite a bit of shock. Of course about 10 seconds after Terri yelled downstairs, Tom IM'd me with the same information. I'm just glad to see that he didn't actually stop to associate with anyone on the show especially that seacrest jackass.
I'm interested in seeing the Neilson numbers to see how many people, who for the most part could care less, tuned in at 9:55 and tuned out as soon as the first syllable of the winner's name came out of the jackass's mouth. I tuned in only slightly earlier just because of the Prince song.
Thankfully I didn't miss the end of the game. Great hockey. It's interesting, I certainly have players that I can point to on each time that I'd love to see win the cup (Recchi, Rollie, Giguere, Tarnstrom, etc.) but I don't have a strong strong affinity toward any one team. So, I'm basically just enjoying some great hockey. Tomorrow night, Edmonton has a shot to close out their series which would be impressive considering how many players that they have currently affected with flu-like symptoms.
I found out today that I apparently look like shit when I go into work most of the time. How did I find that out, you ask? Well, I put on a shirt and tie to soothe a client and all day long people kept saying, "Boy, you look nice today."

Wow, what a third period. I find that I don't have an overly strong draw to any of the 4 remaining teams. I would be equally satisfied no matter which team won. That being said, 8 goals in a period is still a hell of a game. I have a soft spot for Anaheim due to Giguere's fabulous run into the finals a couple of years ago and their new goaltender certainly continued his tradition. However, Rollie's certainly winning me over.
Well, I might actually step out of the dark ages and upgrade past a dial-up connection. I don't even want to hear it. I sit in front of a computer all damn day. Rarely do I want to come home and deal with it. Dial-up keeps me from surfing around too much. I get on, do what I need to do and log off. It's also fairly cheap so that will probably be the over riding factor to see about an upgrade. Trust me, I'd have a T1 piped into the house if I didn't have to pay for it.

At some point, resources are stretched so thin, they either snap or quality suffers. That is one of the thoughts that run through my head as I sit down for the 5th straight night to try and push even on the amount of work that's left to be done.
I think that's the thing about being an adult. There's really no one to say, "Hey, dammit! Wanna help me out here?" As one of the more annoying phrases that the business morons toss about, "You have to own the problem." Ok, fine. I own the problem.
Anyone wanna buy it? Cheap. I'll even toss in a fortune cookie or something.

Another day where it rained just enough to deter any actual work outside. Pretty soon I'm going to have to send up a flare so that the rescue crews can find me.
Game 2 of the Western conference finals tonight. So far, the East is going my way. I don't know about the West quite yet. Anaheim had a huge lay-off after sweeping Colorado so they deserve a game to get back into it. If they can come out jumping tonight and take game 2 then I'll be alright.
I think at least once or twice a year everyone's schedules should be flipped to shake up the routine. If you work Monday thru Friday then for that week you'll work only Saturday and Sunday. If you work nights, you'll work days, etc. No real reasoning behind this, except for the fact that I'm not ready to face another full week of work at the moment. In fact, in about 12 hours I'll be logging into a different computer and starting the cycle all over again. Such is life I guess.

First Adam now Susie. People are just graduating left and right.
It was interesting to see some of my old professors at Susie's graduation. In fact, one of the very first classes I ever had at Carnegie Mellon was taught be a grad student in the English department. Today, she got her PhD. When I went to congratulate her at the reception afterward, it turns out it was her very first class period. So that was a happy coincidence.
One thing that I re-learned today, no matter how incredible your writing is on paper, it is the rare author that can deliver their work with a cadence and charisma befitting the words. Hopefully that won't dampen the reading at Radio City. I don't know much about the public personas of Rowling and Irving. Obviously I've seen numerous interviews with King, but I can't say I've ever seen him actually read his own words. So, hopefully all will go well.
I've been a student of many things over the course of my lifetime...trivia, television, mechanics, reading, speaking, writing, accounting, marketing, business, management, aerodynamics, foreign languages, parenting, medical jargon, the internet, etc. One thing that I guess I took for granted in all of that was the knowledge of the people around me. When studying complex aerodynamics for various, um, enterprises, the people I was dealing with knew as much as or more than I did...or conversely, I was teaching them. And, for the most part every learning experience was like that. Except for writing. Either it never occurred to me that people didn't grasp the more obvious nuances within the language or I was just too egotistical to think about it. After listening to the same 6 student speeches and the few odd professor speeches at the diploma ceremony, I came to the realization of author vs. orator, but it wasn't until I was talking with Susie's mom and sister at the reception that it became clear that not everyone was "in on" the jokes. They were expressing relief that they wouldn't have to listen to the "English people tell jokes only other English people can understand." I thought that was a phenomenal assessment/observation that, like I said, never occurred to me.
Anyway, congratulations to both Susie and Adam. Both have worked extremely hard for the next level in their education and professional careers. And I'm not even going to hold it against Susie that the hockey game today was on concurrently with her diploma ceremony. Ain't I nice?

Okay, I need to get this down tonight since the first game is just slightly underway.

Considering I went 100% for the teams in the last round, I'm feeling pretty cocky.

In the East

Buffalo
Carolina

I'm saying Buffalo in 6

In the West

Edmonton
Anaheim

I'm saying Anaheim in 6

I'm not going to call the final just yet since I'm not guaranteed to be correct.

So Adam is done with law school. Tonight was his diploma ceremony and though we couldn't be there in person, we were certainly there in spirit. According to Tom, his speech went well. So, now we have 2 of the 4 lawyers graduated and out into the real world.
Tom has given me a stack of movies to watch. Sin City, bizarre movie. Perhaps it might have helped if I had any background whatsoever on Frank Miller and the comic books.
I haven't decided about Be Cool yet. I'm tending toward...why was this made?

Well, there's potential for the Western Conference to be decided tonight. That means only two more series left before hockey is over for the year. Hopefully Gage is able to come to terms with the off-season. Otherwise we'll be watching a lot of taped games, the Mighty Ducks, Slapshot, etc. this summer.
With his second birthday fast approaching, I get to look back and see how much input that Terri and I have had in his life. (Believe me, you aren't the only ones scared by that thought, it terrifies me) In this ever changing, and seemingly shorter attention span world, there are also things that I already lament for him. It saddens me that he'll never see Mario Lemieux skate live in a hockey game and score a goal. It saddens me that he'll simply count to 10 without thinking about it. (No, I don't think about it, but nearly every one around my age group counts in the following manner) It saddens me that his television is permeated by reality and his reality is permeated by violence and political unrest.
It will be interesting to see how many "city" friends make it out to the sticks for Gage's party. Culture shock will abound.

Tonight we had dinner with Joe and Dwight. Knowing that our quick decision as to where to eat was simply way too easy, we arrived at said destination to find about 50 people milling about outside and a lot longer table wait than we were willing to deal with. So, we switched locations without too much trouble. Of course, the random topics ranged from christmas cookies to the Dead Milkmen to allowable evidence in a trial to psychology and counting to 12, often in the same sentence.
So, for those of you that followed the cryptic exchange in the comments section, you'll know that Terri, Tom, and I managed to score tickets to a benefit reading at radio city music hall in the late summer by J.K. Rowling, of Harry Potter fame, John Irving, of Garp/Owen Meany fame, and Stephen King, of every book he's ever touched fame. So, my first visit to New York City will be a quick whirlwind tour followed by the main event of the reading. If we pack everything into the 5 days that we tenuously planned on the contingency that we might get the tickets, it's going to be an exhausting vacation.

So, before I get into the weekend, I wanted to relay a Gage story. Thursday was a particularly grueling day at work. We became even more shorthanded and everyone was running at peak crisis and blaring alarm mode. So, for an entire day I could feel the tension building and tearing at my shoulders and forehead. I started for home and hit traffic so I sat bumper to bumper feeling even more shredded than normal. I got home a little later than usual and walked into the house. Dragon Tales is one of the cartoons that Gage inexplicably sits through. It was just finishing up as I walked into the house. Terri shut the television off and Gage came running over. "Dragon Tales all done, daddy." I picked him up and said, "Gage, can I have a hug? Daddy had a crappy day." He gave me a hug, looked at me and said, "Crappy day all done, daddy." Whether it was intentional or parroting, it almost brought me to tears. So, that's what carried me into the weekend.
Wow, what an interesting weekend.
On Friday I had to endure the day at work knowing that Monday I would be repeating to myself "I am alone. I am utterly alone." over and over and over and over and over.
Now, let's consider the fact that I was up until 4 am getting work done since we were getting more and more shorthanded. So, at 5:45 pm on Friday I had a nice moment of finding out that I have to work on Saturday. And no, it has nothing to do with the new promotion. In fact, the reason that I got stuck working on Saturday has to do with the fact that once upon a time I used to be a DJ, which in turn led to playing around with all sorts of high end electronics, which meant running the audio board for various events, which got me trained on the new studio equipment at work, which put me as an extra hand when they need it. Turns out they needed it at 5 am on Saturday morning.
So, went to sleep at 4 am on Friday morning, got up at 4 am on Saturday morning. Then I proceeded to spend the next 7 hours setting up and watching a live medical conference on Migraines. It was actually a lot more interesting than it sounds. So, I got home around 1 and decided to pass on the yardwork that's begging to be done. I napped through the hockey game that was on, which was a good thing since New Jersey ended up winning. Then I got up, got ready and headed out to see Randy perform with the North Hills Harmony Line Chorus. It was a great show and not something that I would have attended had I not known someone performing. Sunday we spent a quiet mother's day morning at home sans kid, who was visiting grammy and grampy. Then we headed down to see our respective mothers. So, yeah, different.
Oh and have a nice day New Jersey, don't let the door of the arena hit you in the ass on your way to the golf course.

Thank goodness the week is almost over. Although the weather is supposed to be crappy heading into the weekend and with it being Mother's Day weekend, it's already pretty much booked solid with various family and friend things.
Of course, at the rate things are going at work, I'll be working on work related items all weekend long into next week.
Thankfully I fell asleep before the 3rd period in the Oilers/San Jose game last night. I could not have made it through to the 3rd overtime. But, if I had made it to the end of the game, I would have kept going.
So, not all the series went to a 3-0 mark, but there are still 2 potential sweeps. One of which will be decided in the next twenty minutes. Sadly, no matter when this one ends, I'll still probably be awake. Such is life.

Am I the only one who thinks the vegetable medley guy on the new Friday's commercial should be taken out back of the restaurant and beaten? Probably, but it should still happen.
Maybe I watch too much tv. Well, this time of year I know I watch too much hockey. When I start developing strong attachments to multiple teams because my team is golfing at the moment, I know I'm watching too much hockey.
So, for the past half-hour or so, I've been discussing seeing your heroes, or at the very least, legends in their respective fields before they pass on, retire, etc. with Tom. Hopefully on Friday I can lock up a chance to see one of my all-time heroes. In fact, I've probably idolized this guy since 2nd grade and he is still going strong in his field. So, send good thoughts my way.
In about one period of hockey, there's a chance for all four series (2 in the East and 2 in the West) to be a lopsided 3-0. That means there's a huge potential for 4 sweeps. I'm pretty sure that would be a first.

Wow.
Even if they don't win the game in overtime, Carolina has a ton to cheer about. With about 21 seconds left their goaltender got surprised by a bad angle deflection in a tie game. He gets pulled for an extra attacker on the face-off. The puck goes into the Devils end and about 17 seconds later it ends up behind Brodeur. Great motivator.
And way to go Buffalo! Ottawa is now done 0-2 and the series is headed back to Buffalo.

I'm curious as to where the Anaheim Mighty Ducks pluck these goaltenders that no one has ever heard of that have phenomenal playoff series and set crazy records. A few short years ago it was JS Giguere who holds, I believe he still holds it anyway, the longest playoff overtime shutout streak. That means that the clock starts ticking when a game goes into overtime and doesn't stop until a goal is scored on you. So, theoretically you can keep just stacking up the time in overtime games. I don't know if it goes from year to year or not. However, he passed up Patrick Roy to claim that record.
This year it's Ilja Bryzgalov setting bizarro records and having games no rookie should have. Today he recorded his 3rd straight shut-off in a playoff game. His current streak places him at 4th on the all-time list for playoff shutout streaks. If he somehow manages to go another game, he'll vault to 1st. Crazy.
It is nice to see Colorado floundering. Maybe they won't get quite as many featured games next year and we'll be able to see some other teams.

Okay,

Since the games started this evening, I need to get this up before I get too much of an edge.

The match-ups are thus...

In the East

Ottawa
Buffalo

New Jersey
Carolina

And the picks are...

Buffalo in 6 games
Carolina in 7 games

In the West

Edmonton
San Jose

Anaheim
Colorado

And the picks are...

Edmonton in 6 games
Anaheim in 6 games

And I went 100% in the East in the first round, but only 50% in the West. So, I guess I'm averaging about 85%.

In less than an hour the Western Conference will be all decided and then I'll go through withdrawal tomorrow since they'll be on a one day break before the second round starts up on Friday night.
So, tomorrow night after the match-ups are completely set for both conferences I'll make my predictions for the next round. I didn't do so well in the West, but I went 4 for 4 in the East, and, as a bonus, was only off by 1 game over all 4 series.
I found out that starting on May 15th Mark and I will be the team with the most experience at work. And we've been working together for 3 days so far. Ah, good times.

Well, I guess Matt is the most recent person to take the hit. Bye Bye Philadelphia. Tomorrow night the Western Conference will be decided one way or another. Then I'll make my predictions for the second round. I was way off in the West, but I had the East pegged completely. The only thing I was a little off on was the fact that I thought Philadelphia would actually make it a 7 game series. But, they're out golfing. Or will be tomorrow.

See ya Detroit! Bye Bye Dallas! So long Nashville!
Oh my, New York...it was nice of you to make it back into the playoffs and get swept! It shows me that not all is out of whack in the NHL. Have a nice day Tampa Bay.
Hopefully Anaheim can pull out a win and force a game 7.
The Detroit/Edmonton series didn't go the way I expected, but I'm okay with that. The Dallas/Colorado series also didn't go the way I expected, but I'm okay with that too. I would prefer that Anaheim comes out on top, I'm just not a fan of most of the Calgary players. I'm glad San Jose came out on top.
I just hope that Carolina and Buffalo can pull off their series.
The promotion is going well, I guess. I survived my first full day on my own. I'll see tomorrow how much I missed or forgot or blew off.