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