Hope everyone has good plans for the weekend through to the 4th, since most normal jobs have Monday and Tuesday off. I will be at work on Monday. The one nice thing about having minimal holiday time off, no client interaction. It's a great clean up day at work. I got a bunch of documentation done today and hopefully on Monday I can get to all the administrative work that has been stacking up.

I don't know what the full story is. And, I'm not sure any type of explanation will suffice. I will never comprehend the reasoning behind this. To put it in other terms, it's like replacing Harry Caray with Bob Uecker. Mike Lange is the voice of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Paul pales in comparison. I know they are both exceptionally knowledgeable in the world of hockey, but Lange actually has the personality for television. Paul barely sparkles on the radio.
Also, congratulations on the Hockey Hall of Fame for finally recognizing that Herb Brooks belongs there.

Well, I woke up at about 6:45 AM Monday morning and I have yet to sleep. After running some errands we got back to the house around 9:15ish. We started the bedtime routine (emphasis on started) and then I finally started working on work-related items in the library/office around 9:45ish. I stopped this morning at 7:15 to take a shower and get ready for work in the office. The kicker, still didn't get everything done.

Well it took almost 29 years, but I finally found a movie that I like better than the book that it's based off of. This was so much better as a movie than as a book. The book wanted to be a good book, it tried really hard. Mayes is a good author, but I have to give more credit to Audrey Wells and Diane Lane, I want to see their vision more than Mayes'.
I've also come to the conclusion after watching this, Nora has the most boring commentary track that I've ever listened to. And that includes the historian track on the Casablanca DVD and the Extreme Sports Punk #1 commentary on Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. She just has a grating monotone voice that carries no emotion toward the project she's trying to sway you to like.
And what exactly makes Nicole Kidman so talented? No...wait...let me rephrase. What makes everyone think that Nicole Kidman is so talented?

Well it took almost 29 years, but I finally found a movie that I like better than the book that it's based off of. This was so much better as a movie than as a book. The book wanted to be a good book, it tried really hard. Mayes is a good author, but I have to give more credit to Audrey Wells and Diane Lane, I want to see their vision more than Mayes'.
I've also come to the conclusion after watching this, Nora has the most boring commentary track that I've ever listened to. And that includes the historian track on the Casablanca DVD and the Extreme Sports Punk #1 commentary on Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. She just has a grating monotone voice that carries no emotion toward the project she's trying to sway you to like.
And what exactly makes Nicole Kidman so talented? No...wait...let me rephrase. What makes everyone think that Nicole Kidman is so talented?

Well, for the moment the Pens have a Staal brother. Hopefully it won't pan out like the Primeaus and the Hatchers where we ended up with the wrong brother. So far, the Staals all look like great prospects. I'm blowing off work that I brought home with me. That means that I'll be behind when I get into work tomorrow morning. What fun. Oh well, how much farther behind can I get you know?

Tomorrow night is the draft. I'll tune in for at least the first two picks. I'm interested to see what kind of moves are made in preparation for the draft. There are rumors that even though Carolina will be near the bottom of the draft order that they'll trade up for the Staal brother in the draft. It's going to take some hefty trading to get that I believe. Phil Kessel will be a hot property I'm sure. I don't know much more about the rest of the draft. Hopefully I'll get a chance to read up before tomorrow night.

I've been at my current job a little over a year and a half. I've been in my current position a little over a month and a half and with the flux going on around me, I'm being looked at as the "senior" member of the Project Management staff. Sure, you can laugh. I certainly did when they mentioned it to me. In addition to all of the meetings, administrative tasks, emails, client calls, and oh yeah, the actual work, I'm also expected to train, help train, and troubleshoot for the other 4 teams. Mark and I are basically building a department of 10 from the ground up and both of us are still months shy of hitting the 2 year plateau with the company. And, I know I've been complaining and whining as of late, but for the most part I really do like my job. I've actually trained myself to think before coffee, be pleasant on the phone, and not actually say the word "Jackass" out loud to anyone above me. All in all, I think I'm doing ok. I still have a sound byte from the Wizard of Oz on my desktop, though. I couldn't let that go.
Well, nobody actually expected him to win it, but Sidney Crosby did not win Rookie of the Year. Alexander Ovechkin won. Dion Phaneuf had basically no chance and I think even he realized that. The award show was kind of disappointing overall. I'm not sure what they were going for, but it was very Canada centric (ok, it was in Vancouver, but you don't want to alienate anyone, do you?) All in all a good show. Even though Jagr won an award it was still ok.

Work has made me cranky recently. So cranky, in fact, that one of the guys at work who plays in a band on the weekends and I have started conjuring up a second career. We spontaneously decided we're going to drop everything and buy a bar. And, everytime one of us is in a foul mood, we add to the bar. So far, the bar has oak paneling with a mahoghany bar top and high back chairs instead of stools. There will be a section of the bar that is a literay section with books adorning the walls. Another week or so of this and we'll probably have enough details fleshed out to set up a business plan. Why a bar, you might ask? Well, no one calls you at home on your day off (or at Idlewild, if that's where you happen to be) and says, "Hey we're out of vodka. We know you can't do anything about it, but we wanted you to know." They'll simply just start serving gin or tequila.

So Gage had a lot of fun and wore out 4 adults in the process. He did get to ride a lot more things this year than he did last year. We found out that some of the things we didn't think he'd care for, we couldn't tear him away from. He still does not like to be splashed, especially around the face. Just like Daddy I guess.

Game 7 Baby!!!!
I'm sorry, when you watch two teams battle it out and trade wins (or in this case battle back to even things up) it's amazing to watch the last game. This really is for all the marbles, the whole enchilada, the whole ball of wax. It doesn't matter who wins because someone is going to be skating the Stanley Cup this evening (or at the very least early early tomorrow) and someone will be headed home empty handed. 7-10 preseason games, 82 regular season games and anywhere from 16 to 28 postseason games. That takes approximately 3/4 of a year.
One of my favorite things about hockey games is hearing both anthems sung before the game. I don't know. I'm not Canadian and probably won't be Canadian, but I know the words to their anthem just as well as I know my own. And for the 7th time in this series I got to hear both anthems sung before each game. And I got to watch as fans from both teams showed tremendous respect in singing along with both anthems. It shows patriotism in a wonderful light for both countries.
Now, I don't have anything riding on the outcome and I'm not overly pulling for one team as opposed to the other so there's no real way to end up disappointed, but wow what a great hockey series.
Tomorrow I'm taking a well-deserved day off of work and heading with Gage, Terri and my parents out to Idlewild. It should be a lot more interesting this year since Gage is wildly mobile and into everything.

Well, Game 7. I'm not sure why, but Carolina just laid down for Edmonton. I'm not sure what the locker-room atmosphere was for Carolina, but having two chances to close it out and falling short both times doesn't look good for them.
We had Father's day dinner at my house and my family came down. Terri's family turned us down and I was heartbroken, but then I got over it. I just remembered a conversation we had at work. We were standing in the little kitchen/cafeteria area in our office and I said, "Life's too short to waste on something that you aren't having fun with." Another guy walks by and says, "Hey, life's too short to waste on something you are having fun with." Interesting prospective.

Wow, at the rate this game is going, there might be a game 7 on Monday night.
Apparently the US team thinks they're going to glide into the World Cup. At the rate they're going, I don't expect them to make it past the round of 16.
Terri and I went to the first of our CLO subscription shows today. We saw Beauty and the Beast. It was a pretty good show. The orchestra could have been toned down just a bit, but on the whole very enjoyable. Although I should have realized that Saturday matinee for a show originating from a Disney movie would be packed with children. And, I guess I can be lenient on their dress code, sort of. There were some people there that looked like they would be more at home in a mall. There were several girls who actually looked like they should be standing on the corner outside of the theatre. I wonder when Americans stopped giving a shit about things like pride, class, traditions, and just manners in general?

It's very difficult to become oriented to a routine in a new position at work when the entire company is in flux around you. Every major client that I've dealt with thus far has sent some sort of email to one or more of my superiors and complimented on how well I'm transitioning into the new role, which sets the bar so high I have no room for errors. Not that I ever make errors, but it would be nice to have the leeway just in case.
Seriously, was the first Garfield movie such a smash and Bill Murray so hard up for money that a second one needed to be made?

Well, perhaps there's only one more period to go in this year's hockey season. We'll see. I'm posting early so I can't say. I want to be able to concentrate on the third (and possibly) more periods.

Now, without fail, come all the twists and turns to a story that was blown out of proportion to begin with. The police didn't want to release the name of the woman who was driving the car that Ben hit. The news had no problem releasing her name, telling where she lived, showing her house on television, and interviewing a neighbor. In addition to all of the injuries that Ben may or may not have received, there were "experts" on each of the channels talking about what he might have to go through in recovery. We also found out that Ben may not have even had a license or permit to ride a motorcycle. And the number of helmet articles goes beyond measure. Apparently since Pennsylvania repealed the helmet law in 2004, the number of motorcycle fatalities went up 30% but no one gave a shit til mid-morning yesterday. Day 2 of Ben-gate continues and the lack of news goes on.

I would love to blog about current events and happenings, but every media person in Pittsburgh is sitting at or around Mercy Hospital. If you don't know why, go here. The accident happened before noon today. The newscasters broke into programming and pre-empted most of the early afternoon programming in order to stand near the Armstrong tunnels and show a mangled motorcycle and a car with a busted windshield. I'm almost certain downtown shut down today with people pouring out of the buildings screaming and crying and waving their hands in the air. According to my podmate, the churches were full of people gnashing their teeth and rending their garmets. I want to say that I'm joking but if you were anywhere near the epicenter of this "breaking story" you'd begin to question what was real and what wasn't. Through the grapevine I've heard stories of injuries that they're keeping from the public, a nurse in on the surgery who stopped to break all the privacy laws by emailing her address book that she was about to go into surgery for Ben. The helmet stories have already started and it wouldn't surprise me if Harrisburg convened an emergency session and the helmet law was re-enacted before the day is done.
Honestly I hope the guy is alright. And my reasons for that are two-fold. One, I'm a fairly nice guy and would hate to see for anyone to be seriously hurt and two, I don't know how much more of this I can take. The federal government could have released a story about Dick Cheney shooting half of congress on a hunting trip while George Bush personally pushed the button and nuked Iran, Iraq and France and it wouldn't have even played before the first commercial on the Western Pennsylvania news. Hell, it might not have even led on most national channels the way this story was snowballing. MSN had four links about it on their homepage alone. I wonder what other kind of story can generate this blinding storm of publicity to the point where I actually heard a newscaster say "A car has left the Steelers practice facility. It may or may not contain Mr. Rooney and it may or may not be headed to the hospital."

Why do weekends have to be so damn short?

Well, I got the DSL all installed. Thus far, they have yet to impress me. The amount of crap that it added to my system is outweighing the speed that it added to my system. Once I go through and uninstall the "helpful" toolbar and various other extensions, then maybe I'll be happy.
I don't understand when the people in this country stopped settling for what they actually want. Why does everything have to come bundled with 45 features that you don't want? Take television. In order to get the ten or twenty channels you will watch on a regular basis, you have to pay more than you should (and in most cases, more than you want) and you get channels that you'll never stop on. Granted these ten or twenty channels vary from person to person, but imagine how much happy the television viewing public would be if they could buy channels a la carte. That won't happen since the owners, broadcasters, and cable providers would find the number of channels that they carry dramatically decrease. Right now they can claim that each channel has the same base number of subscribers since all subscribers get the that channel. I'd like to see the actual number of viewers for certain channels. Then maybe some of these superfluous channels would fade away and stop diluting the programming across the board. It's the same thing with every software package you install on your computer. I now have six toolbars attached to my internet window. They all do basically the same thing and all of them are useless for my purposes of using the internet. Finally after the verizon one attached itself and started spouting "helpful hints" at me while I was trying to accomplish actual work, I deleted all of the useless stuff. I increased my viewing size per page by about a third. Now that's helpful.
Oh well, off to take a microeconomics exam, hopefully it doesn't have the add on attached.

Just hangin' out at school

I'm goin' here someday

Daddy and Gage at The Fence

Mommy and Gage at The Fence

Ah Game 1. Normally I would be posting this much later, but I want to make sure to catch all the action so I wanted to get this short post out of the way quickly. We got a notice today that our two extra phone lines were completely disconnected, our DSL package had shipped, the DSL service would be available on June 9th, and our phone lines might not be compatible with the DSL service. Um, isn't that something they should check out prior to shipping all this stuff out to me? Just a thought. Today was Jacob's 6th birthday. Robyn brought down Norah and Jacob and since Terri had the day off she brought down Gage and we all went out for lunch. The mistake in all that...letting Jacob pick where we got to eat. We ended up at McDonalds. I can still feel the non-food congealing in my stomach, blech.

So Saturday was an interesting day. Terri worked most of the day so I was hanging out with Gage. He let me sleep in til almost 9 and then we got up and had breakfast. We watched a couple cartoons and then headed out to a store called Volkwein's. Volkwein's deals in all things musical. They sell a variety of instruments, do repairs, give lessons, have music related stuff (pens, pencils, blankets, etc), and sell sheet music for all instruments, orchestras, and marching bands. For those of you that don't know or didn't remember, for more years than I care to remember at the moment I played the clarinet. Yes, I was a band geek. Well my mom was asking me whether or not I knew where my clarinet was since she wanted to organize something at her church and wanted to know if I might want to play. My first inclination was to say no since I haven't even opened the case in three years or so. However, I decided to haul it out and see what the situation was. Turns out, it needed a good cleaning, some keys tightened, a cork replaced and some pads re-done. I looked it over and estimated about $50 max. So, that's why we headed to Volkwein's.
I walked over to the instrument repair desk and asked the woman behind the counter how long it would take and how much it would take to repair the clarinet. She said it usually took about a week and they charged $210. I politely pointed to the sign behind the woman that offered brand new clarinets for sale starting at $325. I asked why I would spend $210 to refurbish what I had when I could just spend a little more and get a brand new one. She said, "Well, that's your choice." I asked if they sold repair kits. She laughed and said no. So, I laughed right back, said I'd pick up one on the internet and do it myself. Oddly enough, it turns out that I can, if I'm so inclined. I've found several sets ranging from $25 to $85 which should take care of all my problems. I'm shocked that people would pay that kind of money at Volkwein's. Granted, I like to think of my time being valuable, but a few drops of glue, some cotton wadding, tiny pliers, tiny screwdrivers, and about four strips of corking shouldn't cost me more than the instrument did initially.
Once we left there, Gage and I headed back home and took a nice nap. Then when Terri finished work, we headed up to Randy and Elizabeth's house for a nice cookout. When we got there Randy was in the process of digging up the backyard to replace a natural gas line that was out of code. So, the grill was still sitting in the basement. Randy got the hole dug, the line hooked up, we tested for leaks and then he and Ben went to grab the grill while I filled in the hole. Good burgers I tell you. Katie and Gage had fun playing with a neighborhood boy named Luke.
I also found out that Ben actually played on the album that one of my quotes was taken from. The first quote on the page comes from an album named Glutton's Dozen and Ben played Bass on the album. Small world.

So Tom emails me today and says that Edmonton has their rink booked with Dora the Explorer for the same day and time that, if necessary, Game 6 would occur on. I think it would be funny to see both of them on the ice at the same time. Dora is coming through the neutral zone...ouch...right in the backpack. That's gotta hurt. She's probably gonna send in Benny the Bull to be a goon. Hopefully the Map will be able to diagram some good plays.
So I was poking around today and found out that today is Dana Carvey's 51st birthday. Wow. I would have thought early to mid-40's. Damn.
Tomorrow we're headed out to the Warners for a barbecue with Randy's new grill. Of course, that's if Randy gets it put together correctly (his words, not mine. I have the utmost confidence that it will get done right)
So, I may have sporadic postings over the next week. I decided to jump into the late 90's and get DSL as opposed to the dial-up that I've been working on. Am I dissatisfied with the dial-up? Nope. However, I can use VPN from work if I get DSL (since dial-up can't handle the encryption). This means that I'll have home access to everything that I would have at work so if I do run into the situation where I'm stuck working on stuff at home, I'll be able to fully complete each project instead of just doing 3/4 of it here and finishing at work.
When we moved into the house where we currently live, we put in phone lines and put together a plan that benefited us at the time. Upon closer inspection, we don't need three phone lines and a ton of extras that we aren't getting our money's worth from anymore. So, I dropped the extra two phone lines, ordered DSL and as soon as it's up and running I'll drop the dial-up. Since I don't know when that will happen, I may be on and off this week.

Carolina and Edmonton. I hope their series is as enjoyable as the Eastern Conference Finals. There is always a split on the players who are superstitous and those that aren't. But it always amazes me to see the playoff beards and avoidance of the conference trophy.
Again, I have no real ties to either team. Although both teams have players who started the 05-06 season on the Pittsburgh Penguins roster. Dick Tarnstrom plays defense for the Edmonton Oilers and Mark Recchi plays forward for the Carolina Hurricanes.
I think I'm going to have to go with the western conference team for the win. Edmonton in 6 games.