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.