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.

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.

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.

It's been a while since I've bought a t-shirt with a slogan or saying on it. I just saw one on television that I would pick up if I saw it at the store.
"Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult."
Though I guess some would argue that I'm neither an adult, nor disguised as one.
I spent most of the day pretending I was working for a television studio and a radio station. We had clients in the office for a audio recording, but we're in the process of prepping for a video shoot so I spent the morning on the video side and the afternoon on the audio side. A nice change of pace from sitting at a desk all day, that's for sure.
Hopefully the rain will hold off for the rest of the evening and then it will dry up and I can stumble out of bed at the ass crack of dawn and make it out to buggy before truck weekend this year. Especially since truck weekend is also Easter Weekend. Fun. That will be a nice nightmare to coordinate on their end. Also, I'm a little ticked that once again the alumni didn't seem to get clothing orders. As soon as we discussed...no, you know what, I'm stopping there. I swear I'm turning into a Dana Carvey character.

Lots of stuff to be done around the house and no motivation to do it. I do have to get some bills paid. The credit card companies, car people, landlord, etc. seem to get cranky when you don't get them the money on time.
We were having a discussion at work about how your "favorites" are influenced by when and where you heard them. One person at work didn't know who Corey Haim was. Just flat out didn't know. Lost Boys, Lucas, License to Drive, Silver Bullet, Dream a Little Dream, not one rung a bell. The funny thing was, every guy's Corey/Corey movie ended up being Blown Away. Why? Nicole Eggert. It's the age range. Have someone watch that movie now and you'll get blank stares and probably some popcorn thrown at you for subjecting them to crap. Back then it was a big deal to teenagers. Hell, we even endured Scott Baio in order to watch Nicole Eggert.
Nowadays the novelty has worn off and most likely been replaced in the form of Jessica Alba or Keira Knightley.
One of my favorite movies that I listed was Young Guns. Not exactly a cinematic masterpiece, certainly not the high-brow choice that most people would jump at. But, at the point in my life when I saw it, it was the perfect set-up for that movie. So, it ranks as one of my favorites.
I'm not really going anywhere with this except to kind of illustrate the point from My Fellow Americans. James Garner and Jack Lemmon are two ex-Presidents from different parties that end up on the lam together. They talk about their common experiences in the white house. Jack Lemmon asks Garner who he was most impressed to meet during his term as President. Garner answers Nelson Mandela. Lemmon laughs and says, I'm not a reporter. Garner immediately changes his answer to Ella Fitzgerald. I think it's the same for a lot of people. Sure, I'd like to answer that my favorite author is William Shakespeare or James Joyce, but in reality it's more like Stephen King.

So my evening plans were derailed in the afternoon when my project manager turns around and says, "Pick up (big big boss's name removed) on my line." Ok, it turns into one of those games that I play in my head when I used to get called to the office in high school. 1.) Did I do something wrong? 2.) If I did something wrong, can they know about it? 3.) If it's possible that they might have found out, can I talk my way out of it? 4.) Did I perhaps do something right? etc...
So, I pickup the phone and I hear, "They tell me you like hockey." Sigh of relief. "Yes, I love hockey." "Do you have plans for tonight?" "Absolutely not." So, I got incredibly sweet seats at center ice. Ok, yes they lost the game, but I saw John LeClair score a goal to become only the 7th US born player ever to score 400 goals. And, Jay Caufield was sitting 5 rows in front of us. So, all in all it was a good night. And, now the knowledge that I like hockey is now firmly entrenched on the admin side of the office.
I also have a lot of housecleaning to do, links to post, etc. I just haven't gotten around to it yet. So, expect one of those multi-link posts in the near future.

create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

Holy sad looking states. For better ones look here and here the first of which, incidentally, is where I stole this meme from.

The meme is this: "Recount a one-line anecdote for each state you have visited [and then demand that others do the same]."

You'll notice how quickly mine will pass as opposed to others.

CA: Saw Barry Manilow's star on the walk of fame.
CT: Saw childlike drawings on sale in a cafe for $400, came home and reproduced drawings for less than $20 (including paint).
DC: Did a whirlwind driving tour of all the monuments and stopped briefly to see Mr. Lincoln.
FL: Arrived at Miami hotel in September praying the pool was open at midnight, turns out it was open all night, heaven.
GA: After listening to O Canada by Rush, Terrence, and Phillip for the 15th time, slammed on the brakes in the middle of a 6 lane highway to wake all passengers and get a cd change.
IL: After attending a great wedding/reception listened to a college student complain that out of state tuition was almost $8000 per year. Told him, I'd give my left arm to pay only $8000 per year.
IN: Drove through at an average of 90 mph with the radar detectors absolutely silent until we hit Indianapolis at which point they went insane.
MD: Relaxed on the pier at my friend's office in a hammock across from the main center of inner harbor.
MA: Went from 0 baby experience to being able to babysit in one weekend flat.
NJ: Held off for 30 years and then had to visit Tom.
NY: Had my wedding reception here after being married in PA.
NC: Had a "Code Red" emergency here during a trip to the Tangerine Bowl.
OH: Pounded on Terri's dorm door at 5 AM in the pouring rain to drop off her contacts while wondering why the hell everyone was asleep.
PA: Too many to recount since this is home base.
RI: Went to a House of Satan in Providence and watched Alison buy some season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer thus uniting dislikes and opening the Hellmouth I believe.
SC: Where every gas pump was full at 1 AM.
TN: Saw perhaps the widest range of people and socioeconomic backgrounds ever at a Nascar race in Bristol.
VA: Actually visited Winchester on a whim.

One of the events of this weekend that I didn't mention was the passing of Buck Owens. For more weeks that I can remember, I watched Buck Owens on Hee Haw. Back then I wasn't a huge fan of Hee Haw, but back then we had one television. And Mom and Dad usually outruled the kids when it came to which of the 3-7 channels we could get on that television.
So, once I week I watched Buck and Roy pickin' and grinnin'. Like other things of my childhood, it left an indelible impression that wasn't quite realized til later in life.
Watching the footage from the numerous tributes that they cobble together in the wake of things of this nature made me feel 7 years old again. Watching my brother squirm around on the floor, Dad half asleep in his chair, Mom with the ever present cup of tea and me on the couch glued to the television and watching Grandpa Jones, Minnie Pearl, Roy Clark, Buck Owens and a slew of country music stars that will never be duplicated.

Hopefully the Pens can score a pair to take some points away from Montreal. According to the announcers it would be the first time, ever, that the Penguins had swept a season series with Montreal. That itself would be a nice feat.
Apparently Boston College lost in overtime to Villanova. What does that mean? Not much unless you attended Boston College or, like me, picked them to win it all. Although in the grand scheme of things, I'd much rather have Penguin games go my way.
Gage spent Friday night at my parent's house. Grammy and Grampy are fast realizing that they need to be well rested to keep up with the little man. I jokingly said that perhaps he could spend the whole week there, to which my mom replied, "That's fine. As long as it's a week where I have nothing to do and nowhere to be."
And, although Friday night was a good night for getting things done and some of that carried into Saturday morning, the rest of the weekend has been pretty laid back. I watched Tony Stewart, who claimed someone was going to be killed if we didn't stop the bump racing, bump and subsequently wreck Martin Truex, Jr. enabling me to once again not make any great point leaps this week. Grrr. This week's races were in Bristol Tennessee. Bristol is the track where I've seen several fall races. The Busch race was actually red flagged (where all the drivers had to stop and park their cars) for snow. Snow! In Tennessee. Considering it was about 110 degrees the first time I was there, snow was difficult to contempate. I knew that it snowed there, if for no other reason than Amy Grant's, Tender Tennessee Christmas, but to see a Busch race red flagged for that in March was surprising.

Today was a loooooong day at work. Although since Terri worked late tonight, I've been the model of efficiency. I finished going through all the hockey cards. I got them put away safely and stored. I watched the Penguins beat the Islanders in overtime robbing them of a precious point that they are going to need to make the playoffs.
I've also managed to go through another shelving unit of books. Only 5 more to go. Maybe in another couple of weeks I'll actually finish up. Although my hope is to finish tonight/tomorrow.

I got to spend all day, or at least 75% of the day in a training session to learn how to play with all the new toys they added to our recording studio at work. It's a long way from the four channel mixer and rca patches that I used. The camera boards are incredible. It's a shame I can't do that all the time. Although over the next month or so it's probably going to feel like it. I'll be running the boards for over 10 hours of recordings and then some. I wonder if my desk will miss me.
So one of the movies that Tom lent me was The Fantastic Four. It was actually one of the few movies that I saw in the theater in 2005. I wasn't overly impressed. The effects were ok, but the story was lacking and had huge plot holes. The end battle seemed a little weak too. Since I usually attempt all the extras on a DVD just to give it a fair shake, I listened to the commentary of Michael Chiklis, Ioan Gruffuld and Jessica Alba. It changed two components of the movie for me. Michael Chiklis comes across as a fan of the comic books and his intelligent comments make up for the fact that the movie isn't quite up to par. Jessica Alba, on the other hand, spends a lot of her comment time complaining about the suit, the fact that she's in a bra and panties, and numerous other things. What little respect I might have had for her in the category of actress leapt right out the window. At this point she's reduced herself to just a whiny chick who can't seem to come to terms with the fact that all the roles she accepts are scantily clothed. That, coupled with her recent squabble with Playboy and that puts her about 3 notches off my future radar screens. Have a nice day.

Not much going on today. I watched South Park skewer "Chef" in their newest episode. I smell a lawsuit. I really need to get back into the habit of exercising. Oddly enough, I keep dropping a little weight here and there. I think the couple of weeks that I did exercise boosted my metabolism back to where it used to be. So, if I could get back on track I should have no problems shedding the amount of weight that I want to lose by October 1st and collecting a tidy sum of cash for my troubles.

Since it looks like a pretty safe conclusion that the Penguins are going to lose tonight's game with the Ottawa Senators, tonight they will be mathematically eliminated from making the Stanley Cup playoffs. Now comes the chance to play spoiler. In order we play Montreal, the Islanders, Florida, the Islanders again, New Jersey twice, Florida again, Tampa Bay, Philly, the Rangers, the Islanders twice more, and ending with Toronto. With the exception of the Rangers and Philly, all of the teams the Penguins play fall in slots 6-12 in the Eastern conference. We have a pretty good chance of spoiling playoff bids for the Islanders, Florida, potentially New Jersey if they lose a few more, and the very last game of the season could mean quite a bit to Maple Leafs who are only 5 points out right now. Even though winning does nothing for us at the moment, it's sweet to see our victories prevent other teams from just stepping to the playoffs. Really it's what the Pirates could do if they won more games down the stretch.

Just another entry in the "nothing is ever easy" category of my life.
Terri wants a Sidney Crosby Rookie card for Gage. She didn't really care what kind, just a rookie card. Being a one-time collector, I decided on Upper Deck. They now split the Upper Deck hockey cards into Series I and Series II, and they have all sorts of special cards like game worn jersey cards. So, I go to the Upper Deck site and they aren't selling Series I or Series II for that matter. Turns out that Series I is sold out and Series II hasn't started yet. I figure I'll just hit some of the stores in the area and pick up a few packs. Target, Wal-mart, Toys R Us, a hobby store, Dick's Sporting Goods, and a sports memorabilia store. One place had the cards at $5.25 a pack. Insane. So I turn to the trusty internet. A couple of sports memorabilia places are selling the cards. So I pick some up. Then I realize that I don't have anything to hold the valuable cards. So I run out to pick up some card holders. By this time I've realized that I don't even know what the valuable cards are, outside of the normally high-valued cards. So, I figure I'll turn to the trusty Beckett pricing guide. (Now, just to keep perspective, this is happening over the course of several weeks...I didn't do this all in one day) Since I work in a complex with a Barnes and Nobles, I figure my problem is easily rectified. Turns out Barnes and Noble didn't have it. So I check the beckett site online. I find out that they still publish a monthly issue and this month has Sidney Crosby and Mario Lemieux on the cover. I figure that accounts for the lack of them at Barnes and Noble and decide to hit a couple other stores. So, I travel out to Robinson tonight. Nothing at Toys R Us, nothing at the hobby shop, nothing at the mall (which includes Dick's sporting goods, a bookstore, and sports memorabilia shop), nothing at the Barnes and Noble out there, nothing at the Target, nothing at the Wal-Mart. I've finally given up finding this magazine in Pittsburgh. So, I call up Tom and tell him to keep an eye out. He suggests checking the Giant Eagle in Robinson since it had a larger than average magazine section. Wouldn't you know it? There it was...the last copy of Beckett Hockey Card Monthly. Of course, now that I have the cards, the holders, and the pricing guide...I realize that I don't have any space to hold the cards. So, it's back to the internet for some of these. I should have just hit one of the kiosk's in the mall and paid the $50 or whatever they wanted toward the beginning of the season.

Odd, for some reason, my post from Thursday night didn't post. It was in the queue, marked as published, but not posted. Anyway, it's there now. Friday was my cousin Cindy's birthday so I'm now officially late on getting her gift in the mail too. Dammit, I think the US Postal service should just come to my house.
I've got to get better at posting on the weekends if I want to hit my target goal of posts for 2006. I certainly don't want it to come down to having to post each and every day from November 1st on just to come close.
I still haven't taken a count on how many of the 100 books I've read, but I'll make it there soon. I realized that I'm woefully underread within my own library and I was trying to figure out why. Then I came to the conclusion that I buy books that I want to read, but most of my current reading has been from borrowed books. At least I hope that's the case. I'd hate to find out that I'm just an illitereight poseur.

Tonight we had dinner at the Warners. Gage and Katie had a great time playing. Even though Gage has a lot of the same toys, he looks at everything as though it's brand new. Puzzles me. I'm glad they get along though.
On the way home I stopped by half price books. I got a couple of interesting books, but the one that I'm extremely happy about is "The History of Early Rome" by Titus Livy. It may not sound like a prestigious book, but it represents the 100th book from the Easton Press list "The 100 Greatest Books Ever Written" So, I now own all 100 of these books.
Don't get excited. I said own not read. I haven't taken an accurate count of the one's I've read yet. Perhaps I'll update you on that at another time.
I did read Songbook by Nick Hornby. He's the author of High Fidelity, About A Boy, etc. It was an interesting take on pop music from all walks of the genre. There were a few songs that I'm going to have to track down. I was a little disappointed in the editor of the book. When you put together a book of critiques, essays, short stories, or any short form writing you have to make sure that the writing tricks aren't showing. A writer will find a phrase that they like, or a certain comparison and they use it whenever the mood strikes them. And, although Hornby isn't a hack who uses the same trick over and over, he did use one comparison twice within the context of the book and I'm surprised that the editors didn't catch it. In two different essays he mentions the lyrics of the song covering a lot of ground and says "You'd be hard pressed to find that much material covered in most first novels by beginning authors." Just kind of threw me.
Back to dinner, which was very good, in case you were wondering. I got to peruse Randy's legos and drool over that which I cannot acquire just yet. Man, why do I have to be a responsible adult. If I was an alcoholic I wouldn't think twice about spending an entire paycheck on Stoli. Perhaps I can get diagnosed with legoitisism. It's a rare genetic disorder that predisposes the victim to have to purchase legos at least twice a week. I'm just sayin'.

You are Riff-Raff. You have some freaky astro-boy
hair later on in this movie!


Which Rocky Horror character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Monday at lunch I walked out in a polo shirt. Today at lunch I was hunched over in a winter coat and gloves. What's wrong with the weather? If it's going to succumb to global warming, dammit shouldn't it be warm?
Gage's daycare sent home a note that one of the children has mono. How do children 5 and under get mono? Although having a lethargic child who sleeps a lot might be a refreshing change. I'm just sayin'.

There's a gentlemen at our church who is blind. He has a seeing eye dog and is really a nice guy. His girlfriend is also blind. She lives out of town and only comes in every once in a while. She was in this Sunday and halfway through the service, one of the gentlemen in the choir led her to the front of the church where they had a music stand set up near a microphone. She proceeded to sing a solo while reading the music (in braille) off the music stand. I know how difficult it is to read music for a sighted person. I can't imagine being nervous in front of a bunch of people that you don't know very well, can't even see, and then singing what turned out to be an incredible solo. It was impressive.
This was a sad piece of news that I just came across. Tomarken was from Olean New York. For those of you that know myself and my wife, you'll recognize Olean as the small town where we had our wedding reception. It was a bizarre little coincedence that I just happened to be watching old reruns of Press Your Luck one day when Tomarken announced where he was from. I think people need to stop flying their own planes and pay the exorbitant prices of the airlines.

First chasing Martin Brodeur out of the net yesterday and then blanking the Flyers 2-0 this evening is oh, such a nice weekend treat after the crappy week at work. The wonderful refs tried to hand Philly the game by giving them a 7 minute power play with around 10 minutes left in the third period. The Penguins killed off all 7 minutes. Not bad considering they are 30th in the league on the penalty kill. Add in the fact that they held Philly to 1 shot in those 7 minutes and you can see why the entire crowd at the Mellon arena was on their feet giving the Boys of Winter a well deserved standing ovation. It's a shame that the "officials" in charge of the Penguins future can't see through their blinders to moments like that. Moments that unite 15,000+ people, moments that will no longer be possible in any fashion if the Penguins leave town. Even my mother, who has never attended a Steelers, Pirates, or Penguins game has been to an event at the Mellon Arena. Hell, my grandmother who probably could not have even told you the names of the three major sports teams had been to several events at the Mellon Arena. A multi-function building...for free...it kind of boggles the mind that there's even a discussion about this.
Oh well, the whole point of the post...Pittsburgh 2 (are you paying attention Matt?) Philly 0.

Today was a nice mellow day at home. In fact we barely left the house all day. Actually, I didn't leave the house all day. I got to sleep in a little, read a book that someone at work gave me, play around with Gage, watch the Pens beat up on the Devils and chase Brodeur out of the net, and watch the movie Rent. After the week I had, this was just what anyone ordered, doctor or not. Hopefully the Pens will have enough left in the tank for the Flyers tomorrow night when I'm actually in attendance at the game.

And the perfect capper for the week. Thank God it's Friday. I hope the weekend crawls by so slowly it feels like a year's worth of Saturdays and Sundays. In fact, I wouldn't mind having a nice Groundhog's Day moment on Saturday. I might actually get stuff done.
Hopefully everyone else will have a nice weekend as well.

Three for three in the realm of crappy days. At least tomorrow is Friday. It's funny, one of the guys that I work with developed a little countdown workday timer. It has 9 bars on it at the beginning the of the day. The top 3 are red, the middle 3 are yellow and the bottom 3 are green. It's how we keep track of the day now. "Alright, we're in the yellow." "Ok, we're in the green now." At 1:30, we hear a quote from Caddyshack to announce lunchtime and at 5:59 we hear Judy Garland repeat, "There's no place like home. There's no place like home. There's no place like home."
It kind of breaks up the day a little and gives everyone a little relief from the work day.

I'm trying to figure out how a client that is not mine and a portal that does not belong to me has enough power to ruin not just one, but two work days. It's been insane. Hopefully tomorrow will lighten up a little.
A lot of talk has gone on recently about the peer to peer trading networks. I've seen networks for games, DVD's, and Tom sent me an article this morning about a cd network. I'm just not sure that it's going to catch on, however I've been wrong on this stuff before. I swore back in 2000/2001 that Netflix was never going to catch on. Of course, they are going through some interesting problems that I am fairly certain weren't listed in the original business plan.
Here's something that will give those of you that know me a slight chuckle. I can't register for English Composition (ENG101) because I don't have the pre-reqs on my current transcript.
Not much else is going on in that respect, I just ignored it and registered for Microeconomics. I'm pretty sure if you can read well enough to navigate their piss poor online system you should be allowed to bypass ENG101.

I completely forgot about watching the Oscars. Of the 24 awards given during the telecast, I predicted 14 correctly which isn't too bad for me considering I had only seen 1 nominated movie, I think. I was surprised on 4 more since I always pick who will win, who should win, and then note who did win. So, technically I called 18 correctly, I just didn't trust my judgement to align with the academy's.
Jon Stewart was ok, not great, but not horrible. The audience seemed very bored throughout the whole thing. I think they were trying to figure out how to get out of paying the taxes on the $100,000+ gift bags.
I did read an article on ESPN this article actually. I love the part about Jack.

Part of me still thinks Jack Nicholson saw "Brokeback Mountain" on the winner card, took a deep breath, said to himself "Screw it, I hated that movie," called an audible and said, "And the Oscar goes to ... Crash!"

I know that there are safeguards against that, but seriously, who's going to tangle with Jack?
In Dek's vein of bizarre hometown news stories... this one certainly ranks up there. The top speed reached in the car chase...45 mph.
I was saddened and a little shocked to see that Dana Reeve passed away yesterday. Saddened because after all her ceaseless efforts on behalf of her husband and for the foundation, she probably did not react to her illness the way she should have. I was shocked because when she performed live in January at Madison Square Garden on Mark Messier night, she looked and seemed perfectly healthy. Less than 2 months later she's gone. In addition to her legacy, she also leaves behind a teenage son. I hope he finds the strength to move past all of the misery that he has heaped upon him right now.
And to not end on a down note, this article was causing spirited debate. I think someone needs to clarify the rules. Does the day carry over like a vacation day if you can't use it during the year? Is notification required in advance? So many questions.

On Saturday, Gage and I headed down to my parent's house so that I could help my brother juggle around a bunch of his furniture in his storage unit so that things were more accessible and he could get hold of a few things while he was staying at my parent's house.
So, for most of Saturday I was lifting, moving, pushing, and pulling various pieces of furniture and boxes. Saturday night as Gage and I were driving home, we listened to the Penguin's Pregame show and then started into the game. As we neared closer to home, I had to stop and pick up a few things. We went into the store with 10 minutes left in the first period. The Pens were playing Carolina hard and it looked promising. So, when we got back into the car, they were about half-way through the 2nd period and as they went to commercial Paul Steigerwald says, From the Penguins radio network it's the Canes 5 and the Pens 1." 6 goals in about 20 minutes? What kind of black hole did the Pens fall into. We have to stop spotting the other teams 4 and 5 goal leads. They certainly battled back, but just couldn't pull it out at the end.
Sunday was just a lazy day watching Gage since Terri was on call this weekend. Today was fairly easy-going. Hopefully tomorrow is the same way at work and I can ramp up into the evening and be extremely productive.

So, today I went into the office and when they asked what happened on the drive with the truck, I spun the following yarn.
Ok, so we get to McKnight road with no problem, but then Zak can't find his insurance card. So, we're in his apartment and he and his girlfriend Robin are tearing the place apart looking for the insurance card. Their cat is rubbing up against my pant legs wanting attention. So, I lean down and pet the cat for about 15 minutes and they finally come up with the insurance card. Once that's found, we head outside where it's not snowing/raining/sleeting. We clean off Zak's truck and Robin's car. Robin decides she wants to go down the hill of the apartment complex first. So, she crawls down the hill. I make it most of the way down the hill and realize that one of the problems with the truck and the fact that it needed inspected were the brakes. So, I'm pumping the brakes and sliding a little and I realize that I'm going to hit his girlfriend's car. So, I turn the wheel to the right and manage to stop about an inch before hitting her car with the truck. The bumper of the truck was actually higher than the bumper of the car, but it had those two steel bands and one of those put a ding in her bumper. In the meantime, moving the truck to the right caused the tire to hit the curb and pop the bead on the tire causing it to go flat. So, the Robin is freaking out and Zak is trying to calm her down, so to keep things moving, I'm changing the flat tire. By the time the tire is changed, we're all completely soaked. So, everyone is a little frazzled and we're on the road again. However, in the midst of all the tension, no one really notices that the truck is almost out of gas. At the end of McKnight road in Pittsburgh, there's a hill that goes down into the valley where there's a Sunoco station on the left side of the road, and then goes back up into another hill that turns into the exit for the parkway. Just as I'm about to crest the first hill, I can feel the engine sputter. I look down and the gas gauge needle is basically pointing at my shoe. So, I goose the engine and crest the hill and coast to the bottom and around the little curved turning lane in an effort to make it across to the Sunoco. But, of course, the light is against me, and now the truck is completely out of gas at the stop light across the street from the gas station. So, Zak heads over to the Sunoco to borrow a gas can and get us over to fill up. I can see him inside talking to the employee, pointing out the window at the truck. Turns out, they won't lend him a gas can, but they'll sell him one. So, he has to buy a gas can, fill it up, walk back across the road, put it in the truck so we can go through the light and fill the truck up. The rest of the drive out to Robinson was fairly uneventful til we were about halfway down the stretch of the parkway leading up to Robinson. A tractor trailer, who was ignoring the road conditions ended up jack-knifing across all three lanes. So, while waiting for a tow truck big enough to move the tractor trailer, there were policemen on the scene going from car to car explaining how to get off the exit to the right, head up the road, and basically loop around the accident. Now, keep in mind that the truck doesn't have an inspection sticker (the point of the journey) and as the cop approaches where does he shine his flashlight? Right where the sticker should be of course. His genial posture immediately stiffens and he makes the motion for me to roll down my window. "Missing an inspection sticker, aren't you?" So, I tell him that's why we're in the truck to take it to get inspected. Then he asks for the truck's registration. So, I turn to Zak to ask where it is. That's when the officer asks whose truck it is. I tell him that it's Zak's truck. So, then he asks why Zak isn't driving. Zak pipes right up and says, "Because I can't drive a stick." After the officer finished laughing, he decides that the extra two miles to Robinson aren't going to hurt anyone and lets us go with a warning. We finally get the truck parked and drop off the keys. That's when Robin decides that she's hungry. She asks if I have any recommendations. Being nice, I tell her that anywhere she wants to go is fine with me. Of course, she's craving McDonald's (which I hate). So, now I'm suffering through a crappy dinner that makes me mostly ill. Finally we get back to my car and I get home and stumble in my own door at around 11:30 (after leaving work at 6:00). My cat comes running down the stairs to greet me and ends up sinking his teeth and claws into my leg because he smells Zak and Robin's cat. So that's what my night was like. How was yours?
With the dumbfounded looks on their faces I ask, "Have any of you ever seen the movie Clue?" They say, "Yes" so I reply, "Well that's how it could have happened, but in reality we had no problems getting the truck there and getting back home."
Boy were they pissed. Zak finally had a nice laugh at their expense since they've been harping on him for several months. Now, they'll think twice before believing me again, but it was nice to think on my feet and come up with something so believable and fitting to the situation. My project manager actually made me a tag that said, "Don't talk to me, I'm a liar." I tried to explain that it was all college's fault. I mean, that was what I was supposed to do, make up stories. Just because I had a fictionalized account with real elements doesn't mean I was lying, I mean look at James Frey...ok, maybe that's a bad example.
For the rest of the day I got to give my little jabs too. When things got a little too quiet, I'd throw out things like
...so after we rescued the cat from the tree and were able to get back on the road...
...so after the firemen put out the engine fire and were able to get back on the road...
...so after we realized that the homeless guy grubbing quarters was MC Hammer and were able to get back on the road...
...so after the baby was delivered and we got everyone to the hospital safely and were able to get back on the road...
...so after we went quail hunting with the vice president and were able to get back on the road, well one of us anyway...
...after having FEMA declare the truck a disaster area and were able to get back on the road...
etc.
A nice day.

So I did a nice good samaritan thing tonight. I drove a truck from McKnight Road to Robinson Town Centre. Doesn't sound like much, but if you go back to the entry from Feb. 22nd, you'll see some of the bigger picture. I did get dinner out of the deal, but it took almost 4 hours to complete this task. I've pretty much lost the ability to dawdle like that. I could have finished everything I did this evening in less than 2 hours (and that's with the potential for a stop at one or more half-price bookstores).
Further evidence that I'm being watched and bugged. It's funny. Last night as we were walking into the theatre to see Wicked, they had advertisements for the coming shows in the next season. One of them was Spamalot. Now, considering what a problem most people had getting tickets for Wicked, I remarked that we were going to have to become subscribers in order to be guaranteed tickets. In today's mail is a subscription form for the very same set of shows that Spamalot is in.

Well, I've seen Wicked. Interesting take. One might call it revisionist history. I'll have to pull out the original movie to check, but there was just one little hole. How did 1/3 of the new regime in the Emerald City disappear without raising suspicions so soon after taking office?
I was given the hardest work assignment I've ever had today. I sit in a group of 4 cubes that the company calls a "pod." It's similar to the talent pools I've seen used (and in some cases implemented) in other companies that I've worked for. It doesn't quite have the polish, but it's close. Anyway, that's neither here nor there. One of the guys in our pod has decided that it would be a nice team building experience to create a CD with each of the 4 members contributing their 3 favorite songs. 3. I can't even narrow some albums down to 3. Not many people I know think I can do it. I'm not sure I can do it. My 3 favorite songs, insane. I started just skimming the top of my mind to see what was there. I stopped at 75 because I was so depressed. It's rough. If there were parameters, it would be easy. My 3 favorite patriotic songs. My 3 favorite country songs. My 3 favorite rock songs, etc. It would still be a difficult, potentially monumental undertaking, but at least it would narrow the scope. Perhaps, I'll share if I manage to get them picked. Although then again, maybe I'll just let everyone else share theirs. How about it?
What are you 3 favorite songs? I won't even ask why.