One Book Two Book Red Book Blue Book

And yes, I have that one too. Well, I didn't get a chance to snap any pictures yet, but they are forthcoming. Guesses ranging from 1,350 to 3,000 which, whether right or wrong still constitute a nice rounded library.
So, when I was shopping prior to the New Year's holiday, I was a little peeved to see small displays of Valentine's Day candy cropping up here and there. That was small potatoes compared to the ire that I felt when I was out picking up a prescription on Monday and they had an Easter Candy display!?! Easter is still more than 2 months away. I know it's considered early when it happens in March, but that's still quite a ways off. Why do holidays have to bleed into one another. We're barely out of Halloween before Christmas takes over and Valentine's Day is sharing with Easter and I imagine that before the Groundhog pops up to announce 6 more weeks of global warming we'll be seeing July 4th fireworks displays.
I ran across this article today while I was working late for a webcast event. It's an interesting premise. It ties together ideas that most would consider counter-intuitive. Sitting long enough to write out three pages of stream of consciousness writing would match the amount of time for a decent gym workout. Most of the rest is fairly common sensical, which is why it isn't applied more often.
Well, I'll get the pictures posted quickly and allow people to modify guesses, if applicable. Then I'll reveal the number.

"It Was Firm, It Was Adamant, It Was Resolved."

Well, I guess it's fairly fitting that it's a movie quote to start off the post about resolutions since that will play a part in one of them. I guess I'll just list and exposit as I go.

So, looking back at posts from 2007, I never really set forth an actual list, I was just trying to clear up the list from 2006. This year, I do have an actual list, I guess.

1. Get the new house in shape for both family and baby.
2. Drop another 30 or so lbs. and put a little definition back into the old (and getting older) body.
3. The 5/15/150 prospective.
4. Slowly carve out more time for each family memeber and their pursuits.
5. Try and remember that both children will be unique and a little over 4 years in age difference.

Number one is fairly self-explanatory. We just recently moved and in the midst of packing and moving, found out we were expecting. So, the room in the house where we moved all the extraneous things into is slated to be the nursery. It hasn't quite recovered yet and there are still things strewn about the house. It's slowly taking shape, but it will have to happen a lot quicker to accomodate a late June/early July delivery.

Number two should also be self-explanatory. I've been slowly climbing down back toward the number I have in my head and looking back over the past couple years, I've realized that I've gone down about 10 lbs. each the past two years so it's no longer 50 lbs., but 30. And, though I never had a six-pack set of abs, I'd like to be able to distinguish where the muscles are and my legs, which were, at one time, the body part that was most in shape, are now beginning to lose the tone that they used to have.

Number three deals with my healthy obsession with pop culture. The 150 represents the number of "new" movies that I'd like to view this year. I half-heartedly started this last year, but will be pursuing it a little more firmly this year. Movies only count if I haven't seen them before. That can be a first run release such as Sweeney Todd, National Treasure 2, or the Bucket List or it can be a movie that I wanted to catch, but didn't make the theater such as Waitress, Rush Hour 3, and Eastern Promises. The 15 represents the number of novels that I'd like to read this year. I didn't even come close last year and that was with re-reading 1-6 of the Potter series and adding the 7th. I have several books that I'd like to slot in, but this is the year that I'd like to read all 7 of the Dark Tower series. I'm severely lagging behind in that regard. Ten years ago, I'd be reading the book as I was walking out of the bookstore buying it, but time is hard to come by these days. The 5 is just a little qualifier I recently added after talking to Tom. Tom would have made it through the 150 movies if he could have counted television shows on dvd. So, the 5 is added to accomodate series television on dvd. With what I already own, but haven't seen, I can get almost 40% of the way there on the movies and have enough for the next 7 years tv-wise. As for the 15 novels, I'll talk about that further at the end of this post.

Number 4 is kind of an all overall goal that will only be accomplished by all of us kind of working in tandem. In order for Terri to have time to scrapbook or read or for me to watch movies or build puzzles or write or Gage to learn how to skate or learn how to read, we'll have to keep up with everything else going on in our lives. Cleaning and maintaining the household, looking after the new little one, making sure work doesn't intrude at home, and not falling into the rut of excuses will be main contributing factors toward realizing this goal.

Number 5 is my own personal goal to realize that Gage has been, what I consider to be, the model child in many ways. Yes, I'd love for him to not have my sleep habits, but that can't be helped. This new little one, be it boy or girl, may or may not follow the same paths, but regardless, they will be unconditionally loved and I just need not to project either my own visions of progress or measure against Gage's progress during the formative months and years that lay ahead.

So, there's 2008 in a very ambitious nutshell. And, being almost one week into it and not having even slivered off any of it, well...there's 51 more to go.

Now, as for the 15 novels. When we were moving, Susie seemed appalled at the number of books and said I should count them as I was getting them organized and put away. Well, I have that number. And, for the comments section, I'd like to see guesses on how many books the readers of my blog think I might have. I'll reveal the answer after I see how close or far some of the guesses are. Again, I hope your 2008 is happy, healthy, and productive.

What Were You Doing In Canada?

Well, we made it back from the great white north. The game was, in a word, awesome. The spectacle was all they made it out to be. I'll give a quick travelogue and save the resolution post for tomorrow, I guess.

Monday - Terri went down to her parents to drop off the little man and I headed to work for a half-day. I quickly ran around trying to accomplish everything I needed to have done before leaving and then just as quickly headed back to the house. I hurriedly packed (since I had procrastinated the night before). We got on the road and after an ill-advised stop at the local Barnes and Noble we headed up toward Canadia land. After stopping for dinner and a restroom break or three we arrived at the hotel. We checked in, got to the room, and realized we didn't get what we asked for. Instead of a queen sized bed, we were confronted with two double beds. Annoying. So, I went back to the front desk and asked the woman why I didn't get what I had reserved. Some excuses later and I gave up and hauled in the rest of the luggage. Then I booted up the computer and pulled up the available rooms at the hotel and then called customer service. They looked at the records and found out that I had guaranteed my room with my credit card and absolutely should have gotten what I asked for and had a print out of. So, they said I had three options. Option 1: If the hotel couldn't accomodate me correctly, I could find another hotel in the area and the stay would be on them. Hmmm, tempting but I'm in another country, no clue what's nearby, it's New Year's Eve, and 73,000 people are fluxing in for a hockey game. Not really an option I guess. Option 2: They could see what the hotel could do for me and if that was acceptable it would be finished. Option 3: If it wasn't acceptable, they would file a complaint for me and the service department would review and do something retroactively. I chose option 2. The front desk came back with 10% off the room which was ok. It wasn't dire. Just an annoyance. We could either sleep separately or very very close together. The customer service gentlemen, by the name of Philipe, decided he was going to file a complaint anyway. 1/2 hour later the front desk gave us a student travel rate and basically we ended up with about a free night out of the deal. After all this we opted not to venture out to either the Buffalo celebration or the celebration at the Falls, or the casino celebration. So, I watched Canadia land television (which, by law, incorporated part of Strange Brew) and then we found Dick Clark's rockin' Eve which was done in a split screen with the Buffalo celebration and ball drop. I found out that Buffalo has the second largest ball drop in the United States. Apparently about 40,000 people were there. Terri was asleep by 12:05. I watched some more hockey highlights (which was about the only thing Canadian television was good for) and then went to sleep.

Tuesday - We got up, showered, and got on the road by about 10:15 or so. We got to the border and were singled out and examined both front and back. The question that puzzled us the most in the string of questions was the fourth one. 1. What country are you citizens of? Um, United States. 2. Where do you live? Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 3. Why are you traveling here? We're in town for the Winter Classic hockey game. 4. What were you doing in Canada? Um, sleeping? 5. How do you know each other? We're married. 6. Whose car is this? Terri's. Fine, go ahead. I would have thought the fact that we were in town for the game had pretty much answered what we were doing in Canada. After making it through Customs we followed the directions and got within two miles of the stadium and stopped for lunch. We got back on the road quickly, but ended up in a ton of traffic. We sat in traffic for over an hour and were just waiting to park anywhere. A gas station one block from the stadium was waving people in and just before we got there they paused. Then the guy held up his hand for 1 more. We slid in, parked, and basically sprinted to the stadium. We got through security and luckily had walked in the gate right next to our section. We found our seats and were enthralled by the show the NHL put on. I have to give Buffalo credit, they were great hosts. Yes, we had to endure all the chants and horn blasts of "Let's Go Buffalo" and the booing of Sidney Crosby, but the rink was great. Inexplicably they sang "O Canada" and "God Bless America" and then had a Blackhawk helicopter formation fly-over. I'll direct you here for pictures since my camera decided to erase mine (more on that later). The Pens fans were present and even managed to get a sustained chant of "Let's Go Pens" going a couple of times. The weather was great and I'm told the game was excellently translated to the television but I haven't gotten my copy from Tom yet since he won't be in town til the weekend. So, I'll be excited to see the game from the television prospective. Just an aside, I loved the AMP commercial with ex-Pens goalie J. S. Aubin. It's nice to see he's still freezing in clutch situations. I won't rehash the whole game since you can pretty much hit any sports site and get the highlights. But, you have to wonder who Gary Bettman paid off to get a 1-1 tie, sudden death overtime, and a shoot-out that's won by your league's most valuable player. During the overtime I pulled the camera out one last time to get some player pictures. Then I hear the bing of the camera, look down and see it blinking "Disc Error." I put the camera away and finish watching the game. You can click on Section 143 at this site to see the vantage point from our seats. It's taken from row 10 and we were in row 12 so it's close. After the game we headed out to find a souvenir for Gage. We decided on a mini-stick since we knew he'd love that based on Tom's gift from the Phoenix game he attended. Stand 1, sold out. Stand 2, sold out. Stand 3 outside of stadium, sold out. Stand 4, sold out. So, we gave up and headed back to the car. Then we saw one last stand. We walked over and there they were. So, we started making our way to the front. Just as Terri got there the last one got sold. Thankfully she didn't move since they had more on the side that we didn't see right away. So, Gage got his mini-stick and loved it. We got back to the car and ordered sandwiches from the Subway inside the gas station where we parked. Then we asked the attendant for better directions and avoided 80% of the traffic and got back to the hotel pretty quickly. After a quick trip out scouting for snacks we were watching more Canadia land television which included a ton of highlights and clips from the game. I won't get tired of watching Crosby go five-hole on Miller. We turned the camera back on and it said, "Repairing Disc" for about 20 minutes. Then when it was finished we looked at the pictures and the last one shown was taken at our house on Christmas morning. So, all the pictures of my family's Christmas and everything taken leading up to the Winter Classic and all the pics at the Winter Classic are currently gone. I'll see about recovery, but I don't hold my breath. I even had a picture of the two retards that didn't understand the concept of sitting down to watch the game. I imagine it would look something like this.

Wednesday - not much to report. Got up, had breakfast, packed and got in the car. We explored the duty free shop for a little while and I'm curious as to why, if you can only bring about 1 litre back per person all the specials were for 3 mix and match litres on most sales. Other than the sales, I wasn't impressed with the prices there. They weren't all that cheap in my opinion. We stopped for a late lunch in Erie and went to a sports shop and came close to buying a pair of skates for Gage. The salesman recommended getting them fitted, though so we'll have to find a place around here. I'd also like to find a used sports store like Play it Again Sports to pick up a pair for me. We finally got to the in-laws, picked up Gage and then headed out to run some errands making it home fairly late.

So, there's the travelogue. I'm sure there's more detail, but that should suffice. Resolutions and such to follow. Hope everyone's New Years was fun and fulfilling.

Well, it's now the last day of 2007. Wow, what a year. Here's to a happy, healthy, prosperous new year for you and yours. Later today, Terri and I hit the road to Fort Erie, Ontario. No actual New Year's Eve plans, but on Tuesday, we'll be here. You can watch for us, but I don't know if we'll be distinguishable from the other 72,998 people. Hopefully the weather will hold and we'll be ok. So, if we don't talk to you, Happy New Year. I do hear that there's a nice fireworks display over the Falls, so maybe we'll catch that. Again, I'm sure the next post will include a rundown of the game and some resolutions, etc.

A Rebirth?!?

Alright, alright. Yes, it's been about 260 days since my last post. And, if I went into detail about all that had happened since, it'd be another 260 days before I finished this one. So, basically here's the condensed spiel we sent in our holiday cards.

Change was in the works for us in 2007. We left the house we'd been in for 6 years, got pregnant with a second kid, I got promoted again, etc. etc.

The house story would take days and days in and of itself to plunk down in a post and anyone who actually still visits this blog has either heard about it, been there in person, or can call for updates.

As for the child, well it's still too early to tell if it's a boy or girl, but Mommy and baby are healthy and happy (when Mommy's not throwing up that is). Gage is excited about the prospect of being a big brother and for a long time was set on having a baby brother because he's a boy and that would work out. Then he changed his mind and wanted a little sister. Then he got the idea that if we had one of each, Mommy could play with the little sister, he could play with the little brother and then they could switch. Apparently I wasn't included in that master plan. Once the doctor confirms that we're having a boy (since no girls are allowed in my family), then we'll be able to give Gage more concrete details to assimilate. He'll eventually have a name and a nursery will take shape. That won't happen til late January, early February, though.

Promotion is a promotion. Nothing interesting there.

The first half of the holidays were nice. Gage got his zamboni from Santa Claus so his Christmas was made. New Year's Day will find Terri and I outside in Buffalo watching the Winter Classic between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Buffalo Sabres. I'm sure given the chance most people head for the beach and we're driving to Buffalo, to sit outside. Maybe the doctor can examine our heads when they do the sonogram.

Ok, I don't want to be too wordy on my first day back. I'm sure there will be the requisite resolution type things for the coming year shortly to follow with the first one being started today...namely, posting here a lot more often than once every 260 days. Hope the rest of your holiday season goes well.

Tonight I will do something that I have not done for 6 years. I will go home, grab a cold cider, lean back in my recliner and watch the Pittsburgh Penguins play playoff hockey. Game 1 is against Ottawa.

I know I haven't posted in a long long time and there are myriad reasons, but I wanted to post tonight to get my hockey picks on record to see how I do. This season, I'm picking more heart than head, but stranger things have happened.

Oh, and Lord Stanley will be home in a few months, be sure to stop by and visit.

East

Buffalo (1)
Islanders (8)

Buffalo in 6

New Jersey (2)
Tampa Bay (7)

New Jersey in 7

Atlanta (3)
Rangers (6)

Atlanta in 7

Ottawa (4)
Pittsburgh (5)

Pittsburgh in 6

West

Detroit (1)
Calgary (8)

Detroit in 5

Anaheim (2)
Minnesota (7)

Anaheim in 6

Vancouver (3)
Dallas (6)

Dallas in 7

Nashville (4)
San Jose (5)

San Jose in 7

Ok, there you go, better or worse. Though I hope Buffalo, New Jersey, and Detroit prove me wrong.

"It's a great day for hockey!"

Grrr. Circumstances conspired to make it seem like I was every other paranoid Western Pennsylvania jackass scared that I'm going to be buried in my house for months before anyone discovers me. This past weekend, I realized that I need gas in my car, but of course, waited until the last possible minute. Which meant that I had to wait in line to get a freakin' tank of gas. And of course we ran out of eggs and milk this weekend too. A loaf of bread and a package of toilet paper and I could have been just like everyone else at the freakin' grocery store.

I don't think "Thank you" is quite what I should express to Victoria, but I guess once I get everything set up, I probably should. What am I talking about? Well, I was catching up on my blog reading and noticed a new addition to the side of her blog. It was entitled "Random Books from my Library" and had a link to this site. It'll be a big sink hole for time at some point in the future, and I'm sure I'll attempt to install the same blog links that she has, but I'm positive it's going to become as invaluable to me for my book collection as the dvdaf site is for my dvds. Now I just need a site for my music and I'm all set.

If I didn't have a phone at work and had an office where I could shut the door, I could do what currently takes me a week in approximately 12 hours, easy. Interruptions are killer and for someone like me who is only tenously connected to the non-procrastinating motivated working world anyway, it's rough to get back on track. Hell, I just lost 45 minutes catching up on everyone's blogging for the past week or so. First, I must say "Congratulations" to Joe. I've known Joe almost as long as I've known Tom which at this point in our lives is crazy long. I'm happy that he's been sticking with the whole health thing as long as he has. Just keeping track from September til now in and of itself is a big accomplishment to me. I think my personal record is maybe 10 weeks on and off and I've never had what could be considered serious motivation behind it. So, keep it up Joe.
Then, I would say, head over to Tom's blog to watch the Sidney Crosby goal that he saw live. Amazing.

Ah, big two points stolen from the Western Conference. That puts the Penguins all by themselves in the 5th spot in the Eastern Conference one point out of 4th. And, we get to play Philadelphia again on Thursday. That should be a guaranteed two points if the first six games are any indication. I'm looking for Crosby to widen his gap in the scoring race.

Just a couple of links tonight.
This was more disturbing than anything else.
Ok, this was disturbing too.
I also got my annual, "Please give us money call." from the alma mater. I really wish they'd list my major for these poor people. Then they wouldn't start with an amount that just makes me laugh.

It truly irks me how differently professors run internet courses. To me, self-learning on the internet should be just that. If I want to wait until the weekend that all the tests are due and spend 10 hours working on it, that's my call. I don't want to have to log on before Friday of each week to get a weeky participation grade.
Oh, and in case I didn't mention it, I'm done with winter.

Ah, lingering sickness. Got to love it. Slippery slope arguments. Got to love them. Flame wars. Got to love them. Can someone please explain to me how the Cialis commercial with the grandparents being interrupted on the way to the bedroom by the kids and grandkids is appropriate to show on tv? It's just creepy dammit. Now everytime I walk into my parent's house, I'm creeped out. Hell of a weekend for hockey! Hopefully the Pens can keep this trend up and stay in the playoff hunt.

Susie did write a great post about the smoking issue. Head over and check it out if you have time. It's a post or two down by now, but well worth the read down.
It's very interesting to see how different people do the same job. They all have different methods, different theories about what works and what doesn't, different ways of dealing with the madness, and vastly different understanding about how all the moving parts work. No great breakthrough here, just an observation.
My great breakthrough came after 4 out of 6 on a certain project and it pissed me off I didn't think of it sooner.

I had a huge post brewing about how Darryl Worley was becoming the next Lee Greenwood. His newest single, "I Just Came Back From A War" actually had me considering the global feelings over the current situation and obvious and not-so-obvious comparisons to Vietnam. It's very easy to support or not support the situation from my bedroom holding a laptop. I don't think I'd be so glib with an RPG being launched at me. So, I just decided to casually mention the post and leave it alone.
I was also ready to launch into a nice tirade about freedoms and being told how to live after reading a local article about Carnegie Mellon University attempting to become an enforced non-smoking University by 2010. However, Susie's rants were much better, so I'll leave that to her to post or not post.
The reason that the blog has been silent as of late has been because I was knocked on my ass sick. We went shopping after work on Friday. I came home and went to sleep and then couldn't get up on Saturday. Saturday, Sunday, and I called off work on Monday. I was barely awake 8 total hours over those three days. I went into work on Tuesday but against my better judgement. All day long people kept telling me how much I looked like crap. Today was slightly better, I at least completed several thoughts. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

Hopefully the Pens will pull out the win in Boston tonight. It'll make for a much nicer game on Saturday. Even having shortened work weeks last week and this one hasn't helped the work load. Hopefully I can get a few programs off my desk and get the workload back to a manageable level. I have a lot of stuff around the house that's absolutely begging to be done and this working 10-12-14-16 hours a day just isn't cutting it.

Houston was a good trip. Gage was incredibly well behaved on the plane ride up and back. The stewardess couldn't believe how nice he was. All of Terri's relatives that hadn't previously met Gage loved him as well. The wedding photographers spent more time stalking us than the newly married couple. Gage was hitting on two girls at the wedding. One was a cute little 5 year old in a pretty red dress. The other was a fairly hammered bridesmaid. I must say, he has good taste.
Once we got to the Houston airport, we had to take a shuttle to the rental car center. They talked me into upgrading to a Ford Taurus. Yes, I said, upgrading to a Ford Taurus. The car had about 6,800 miles on it. And it had a cassette deck. No CD player. A cassette deck. Which meant that the CDs I packed were pretty useless. As expected Houston radio has a lot of country. On the way to the hotel we stopped at a Sonic for breakfast. So, I finally got to eat at a Sonic. Then on the same road as the hotel, Half-Price Books baby. So, we had a nice place to kill time. And there was a Jack-in-the-box across from the hotel. We met most of Terri's family for lunch and had some Chinese tasting Mexican food. The rehearsal dinner was a nice down home barbecue. The wedding was nice, the reception was fun and the trip back was uneventful. So, all-in-all a good trip.
Well, I decided to do the 150 movies thing. So far I'm up to 2. My criteria is that I've never seen the movie (or the whole movie) before. So Die Hard wouldn't count at all. Neither does The Last Boy Scout which I'm currently watching. So, the first movie I saw was First Daughter with Michael Keaton and Katie Holmes. Not too bad. The second movie was Ice Princess with Joan Cusack, Michelle Trachtenberg, and Kim Cattrall. It also had a cameo by Brian Boitano.

Less than 12 hours til "Da plane, da plane." Guess I should probably pack. And yet, I'm still trying to catch up on work.
Why, why, why is Renee Zellweger still able to get acting jobs? Why? I don't understand. She's not overly nice to look at. Not particularly talented. I haven't seen her in anything that made me sit up and say, "Damn, that's good acting." And yet, she's booked for these high profile movies that could be so much better in some one else's hands. Mrs. Potter will be one of those movies without a doubt. And that's a damn shame.
Oddly enough, I'm accomplishing more of Tom's resolutions than I am of my own. I realized scanning through my collection that I can get 20% of the way to 150 movies just by watching the DVD's I already own that I haven't previously seen. I could easily (ok, well not very easily) pick 5 novels from the stacks of books that I haven't read. And, this weekend, I'll be hitting a state I've never been in.

I think I've mentioned this before, but I work in what they call a pod situation. It's basically 4 cubes turned around into a little common-type area. The company is growing and they are talking about re-assigning some of the resources. With the exception of the first 2 1/2 weeks when I was partnered with my buddy Mark, I've worked with the same 3 people for 8 months. We have almost double the amount of clients and with some of the high volume, we have triple the amount of work some other teams have. (I know some of that sounds like exaggeration, but we actually had a count up meeting today to discuss evening the playing field). And, for the most part, we've managed to deliver almost every project without fail. And with the prospect of losing one or more of my team members tomorrow to be replaced with someone new, unfamiliar, and, in my opinion, inferior on a skill level, I can only refer to the words of Larry Gelbart used in the television script "Divided We Fall" in 1973...

"In my short stay here, I have seen textbook examples of neuroses, psychoses. I have seen voyeurism, fetishism, and a few 'isms' I've never even heard of. And let me tell you this, General: These impossible people are in an impossible place doing totally impossible work. They're mad. quite mad, all of them. And the only act I can think of that would be madder still would be breaking them up!" Capt. Hildebrand

Well, once again things are working their way to crazy since I'm trying to take two days off. What's funny is that no one in the office knows that I just took Monday off to rest from the trip. We're actually flying back on Sunday. So, I can always say, "Well, my cell phone wasn't getting a good signal, or I was in the airport."
Hopefully Gage's first plane ride will go well. We don't really have anyone to give us first hand experience of plane travel with kids around Gage's age. Infants, yes. 5 and 6 year olds, yes. Nothing between 2 and 3. That should probably tell us that this is an extremely bad idea, but we're going anyway.

Weekends when Terri has to work kind of screws everyone's schedule. That combined with a Sunday night hockey game is not going to make for a pleasant Monday morning. And considering this entire week will just be a preparation to this weekend's trip, it's going to be a long January. And, since we're trying to break Gage of his parental night-time security blanket, it's really going to be a long January.

This 150 movie thing intrigues me. On the surface it seems very easy. There are 365 days in the year. It breaks down to a movie every 2 1/2 days. Doesn't seem difficult at all. Then I realized just how often I do anything over the span of 2 1/2 days. I don't know if I'd make it. But, I might try. I think I'd make the stipulation that I had not previously seen the movie. With the average movie having a 90 minute link, it would be approximately a 37 minute a day commitment. Then again, I have no idea where I'd come up with 37 minutes a day.

Wow. I cleaned up on the sales at Best Buy today. I ended up with $300.00 worth of DVD's for a fraction of that. Compounded with the gift cards and coupons, plus Reward Zone deals, I made out. I could have come away with a lot more, but I decided to limit it only to series television that I already owned at least 1 season of, and consecutive buys. So, I finished out the entire series of M*A*S*H and the Pretender. I also picked up the entire series of Dead Like Me. Sweet deals.

You Belong in 1974

If you scored... 1970 - 1979: Bold and brash, you take life by the horns. Whether you're partying or protesting, you give it your all!

What Year Do You Belong In?

Ok, so on Thursday when I said that the week was almost over, I basically meant the work week. The rest of the weekend was only heating up. I couldn't mention it here prior to the situation due to the secretive nature, but we attended a surprise graduation party for Matt thrown by his wife Alison. So, on Friday we headed over to the other end of the state. The car ride out wasn't too bad and we arrived in time to be greeted by Alison's family and Gage got to meet Alison and Matt's nephew Connor. More updates on the weekend to come, but this post is to mainly wish everyone a happy and healthy new year and to notch post #1 of this year's 250.

Well, the week is finally almost over. Which, in turn, means the year is almost over. And finding VH-1's One Hit Wonder Countdown in Hour 1 of 5 this late is not a good thing. Oh well.

This is not the first year the company I work for has been in business and yet all of the little nuances that I didn't know about last year while I was in QA cropped up this year as a project manager. You'd think that there would have been a meeting a month ago about all this end of the year nonsense. Today it was sprung on me that the rest of the paperwork that I had shoved aside was due by noon on Friday. Woo-hoo!

I'll get to the actual post that I had been writing in just a minute. I just got a phone call from Matt. He's been visiting relatives since last Friday and will continue to be visiting until after the new year. He was apparently out shopping and felt the pressing need to call and inform me that he could buy me, brace yourself, VALENTINE'S DAY CANDY!!!!! For the love of God, it's not even 2007 yet. I just don't understand. I don't get it. I don't even want to try. Now, back to the original post that I was working on.

Well, it's not quite the end of the year, but I did hit a number that I've been striving for all year. On January 1st, I listed the following items...

1. Drop 20% of my body weight
2. Double the number of novels read in 2005 from 15 to 30 (yes, I know it's sad that I only managed to clear 15 novels in the past year, that's why I'm trying to change it.)
3. Blog a lot more often with a lot more consistency
4. Begin writing for me
5. Visit family and friends

Number 1 didn't happen. I got promoted, got busy, and got lazy. I am ending the year 10 pounds or so lighter than I entered it, but I had much higher aspirations.
Number 2 didn't happen either. I didn't even make the 15. So I have two things to work on automatically for next year. Number 4 didn't happen. Number 5 happened sporadically, but not enough. There were many more that we couldn't get to and I do apologize. Hell, we went months at a time not seeing people here in Pittsburgh this year. Now, on to number 3 and the reason for this post. I decided on January 1st that the number I wanted to hit in order to satisfy number 3 was 250. That meant I could skip 115 days during the year and still make 250. Well, today's post is number 250. It took me almost the entire 12 months, but I did satisfy that requirement. Hopefully at least 1 or 2 of the 250 were worth reading. I know they weren't all masterpieces, but they weren't all angry rants either which is a good balance for me. So, I'll probably give a similar list for 2007 (maybe some additions, some scaled back aspirations), but for now I'm happy to have hit 250 posts for 2006 and there are still 5 days to go.
And, for anyone who is counting, it's 50 days til Valentine's Day.

Well, it's over. Back to the grind tomorrow. Then hopefully a lull going into the new year, but I doubt it. Several of my clients seem determined to see me have a nice massive heart attack. Gage seemed to have a really good Christmas. He got presents on Saturday from Uncle Tom. He got presents on Sunday from Terri's family. He got presents this morning from Santa and Mommy and Daddy. Then he got presents this afternoon from my family. So he's been pretty content. Hopefully he'll settle back into a routine in the new year.

Almost done. By this time tomorrow the hype will finally be over.

***The rest of this post deleted by author due to the inevitable backlash of yet another anti-Christmas rant***

Enjoy the day!

Ah, three days of rest and relaxation. Who am I kidding? We think we've finished up shopping, but who knows. I'm sure I'll have to make a run somewhere. Now I have to get everything organized so that Terri can get it all wrapped. At the moment we have no plans for tomorrow, but again, that'll probably change. We'll most likely run out of some food substance and it'll take me 8 hours to pick up a frozen pizza or something.

It certainly doesn't feel like Christmas. It got up around 50 degrees here today. The closest thing we had to snow on the ground was the frost I scraped off my car. I guess technically there's 3 full days before Christmas so you never know. Ok, anyone who has even stopped by my blog briefly probably made the astute assumption that I'm a hockey fan and that my favorite team is the Pittsburgh Penguins. That being said, I was of course following the whole casino awarding process quite closely. There were three plans competing for one award. The North Shore plan, which didn't really seem remotely plausible. The Station Square plan, which was good in theory, but bad in execution. The Isle of Capri plan, which, in addition to the actual casino, was also committing 290 million dollars to a new multi-purpose arena for the county. Of course, the Penguins would have benefited greatly from the Isle of Capri plan. Setting the hockey angle aside, I don't understand how anyone can look at the plan and not feel like it was the best one. There is not one person in Allegheny County who can say that the arena wouldn't host an event that they might attend. My Grandmother, who rarely left Washington County, went to the arena for the circus and the Billy Graham revival.
Heinz Field hosts somewhere in the vicinity of 25-35 events per year. Steelers games, Pitt games, the WPIAL championships, and some large concerts when available. PNC Park has 81 Pirate games and good weather large concert events. If scheduled carefully, an arena can be put to use 250-300 times a year or more. 41 hockey games for the Pens, concerts, the circus, ice-shows including Stars on Ice, Disney on ice, Sesame Street on ice, etc., Monster Truck Rallies, Pro-Wrestling, basketball games, and on and on. Hell, Pitt used to hold graduation ceremonies there for the entire University. How do you turn that down and face the people you just screwed? It can't possibly have had anything to do with the actual casino. Everyone involved knows that on some level none of the plans were going to meet their 1 year earning projections or their 5 year earning projections. Where exactly are the people using these machines going to come from? I know that people plan vacations to gamble, I get that. However, what does Pittsburgh have to offer to compete with Atlantic City, Vegas, Niagra Falls, etc.? And the casino is only slots. No table games. Serious gamblers need a tad more than slots. It absolutely baffles me how you can be a fully functioning adult and turn down 290 million FREE dollars. I guess instead of laying out money for season tickets next year I'll have to invest in the Center Ice package on satellite so that I can see the Kansas City Penguins or Cows or whatever the hell they end up being.

Ugh. In the category of things that would have been helpful to know last week. Almost the entire senior management staff was gone starting tomorrow and through the new year. That meant all paperwork had to be in and finished. Guess who got hosed on that deal. I showed up to work Tuesday morning around 9ish. I left work Wednesday morning around 8ish, ran home, showered, changed and headed back. I left work again at about a quarter after 6. The kicker...still not finished. They gave up and shortened my list to the crucial items. I got most of that done. Of course, that meant that I missed a Penguins game and two days worth of Christmas shopping. Oh well. 99% of my clients will be out of the office next week so hopefully I can finish digging myself out of the hole. Just in time to greet the new year.

Well, I also know where I'll be on July 4th. The trailer didn't even give a hint of plot, but that doesn't matter where the Die Hard franchise is concerned. I guess I'll have to give consideration to the other movie opening in July of next year. It's some franchise they're beating to death. This one will be number 5 and there are talks of 7 total.
Surprisingly enough, Christmas shopping (what little I've actually done) hasn't been too bad. Of course, I've avoided most malls and major stores, but whatever it takes. In fact, we're almost done with shopping for this year. Just a few more people. I think.

Well, congratulations to Matt. He's now Dr. Mutchler. As a nice pre-Dr. gift, I did not call to taunt Matt about the Penguins/Flyers Wednesday night match-up. And believe me, there would have been a lot to taunt. A nice 8-4 victory. Sidney Crosby has a 6 point night. He also takes the lead in the NHL scoring race. Several Pens players also had a 4 point night. And for the first time in Penguins history, they've opened a season series with the Flyers 5-0. Which means they'll only need to win 3 more times against the Flyers to sweep the season. That would be a nice Christmas present. We just need to figure out how to beat certain teams now. Like Montreal.

Gage and Colby Armstrong
Gage and Ryan Malone
Gage and Iceburgh
Well, I'll talk about Wednesday later once I have a little more information. For now, I just wanted to show these three pics.

On Friday night Terri had the late shift so I was watching Gage. At around 8 there wasn't really anything on television and I figured that most of the holiday retards would have cleared out of the local shopping haunts. So, I called Terri and told her we were headed out to do some shopping. I bundled Gage up and we headed up the stairs. Gage was singing "Jingle Bells" at the top of his lungs and that's when I noticed the front end of a car in my sight line at the top of the hill. That meant that the car was parked in the middle of the road. Then I noticed the bubble lights. It was a police car just parked there. I live on a dead end alley road and this was quite a surprise. Then I noticed there were two more cars and a police wagon parked behind the first car. I turned to the right and there was another car in the parking slot next door. I turned to the left and there was another car in the neighbor's driveway. So, there were 6 total police vehicles blocking our tiny little dead end alley. Gage is still singing away and the only thought running through my mind is that the police are on a manhunt and I'm about to be shot at. Then we noticed the nice neighbor lady in her kitchen so we headed up to see if she knew what was going on. Turns out the alarm went off in the not-so-nice neighbor's house and these were the responders. And, apparently they couldn't go in the house til they got hold of someone. Whatever the time limit is, they apparently went past that and forced the door open. The brand new door to his brand new addition. What made me laugh is that it was his front door that had the alarm go off. But the screen door was locked from the inside. Instead of just wrenching open the screen door apparently they broke the frame and some of the hinges on his new door. That's karma coming back around for you.

One of my team members at work turned around and said, "I really hate Mondays." My answer, "Around here, every day in December is a Monday. Did you finish your list yet?" Some Christmas cheer. Our holiday party got moved to next year. And, I'm pretty sure there's no way I'm going to be able to deliver all the projects that I have currently going. Of course, we're going to try. I'm cutting so many corners right now, my cube is shaped like a donut. MMMM, donuts.

So, December (what there has been of it) has gone by quickly and without any fanfare. Since I've been in the process of a bazillion different things, I haven't even had the time to stop and notice the usual holiday annoyances. Terri has done absolutely all of the Christmas shopping thus far and though I'll be tortured at some point, I guess it's gone quite well. Since I've been carrying CD's in the car (though I guess it's not technically a car anymore) I haven't heard much in the way of Christmas Carols. Unless you count Gage practicing for his Christmas program. In which case I've heard, "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer," "O Christmas Tree," and "Jingle Bells" over and over. This must be for the retarded child who can work weird contraptions, but can't cup their hands together and pat.

So I gave the audio book on cd another shot and this time it played without any glitches. So, for the past week or so, on my daily commute I've been listening to Shopgirl read by the author Steve Martin. I don't know if it was the book, Steve's intonation, or my general distaste for the whole genre, but it was not a pleasant first experience. Who knows, maybe someday I'll try again.

Tonight's game certainly didn't have the outcome that I wanted. However, I did get to finish watching the game from the special lower section box seats so it wasn't a total loss. Gage had a lot of fun and got to see Iceburgh up close again. I can't believe that it's only 20 days til Christmas. Which means that there's only 26 days left in the year. I wish I knew where 2006 went. There was a hell of a lot more that I wanted to accomplish.

What a weekend. The boxful of work went untouched. And while that was a good thing over the weekend, it didn't bode well for a good Monday. But, I managed to survive and keep punching and jabbing til I left. Of course, another pile came home with me. Hopefully Studio 60 will be good tonight and I'll be jazzed enough to stay up and make a dent in the work.
Through whatever combination of being lazy, busy, etc. I haven't had a shave in about a week and a half. So, I'm sporting a pretty good growth. Someone at work asked if it was my catch-up beard. Like I wasn't going to shave until I had all my work caught up. I thought about it a second and realized that if that was the case, I'd either look like this or this.

Is it a law that time and space have to slow down on a Friday? It's very painful to have a full week after the abbreviated week last week. Even though I only had one day off, we did manage to get out a couple of hours early on both Wednesday and Friday. Oh well, maybe car shopping tomorrow will be in my benefit. I doubt it, but I can hope.

Wow, I looked at the stats yesterday and it said that was my 600 post since starting the blog. Not too bad. Although 600 posts in 44 months isn't great. So, most of you who know me know that I'm not a fan of books on tape or cd. I gave Matt a dispensation because of his 1 hour commute each way. I gave Tom a dispensation because of a 5 hour trip across the state. I, myself, never listened to a book on tape or cd. Until this morning that is. Those who know me are also aware that I hate holiday creep. So, when I heard my first Christmas Carol on the radio more than a week before Thanksgiving, I started carrying CD's in the car constantly. Well, Tom was home this past weekend and he had Shopgirl by Steve Martin read by Steve Martin. So, I thought I'd give it a try. I took it in the car with me this morning and my car cd player started the disc, let it play for about a minute and a half and started skipping. I ejected the disc and there were no spots, no scratches, nothing to prevent it from playing. I put it in again, more skipping. I waited 10 minutes to see if the car should be warmed up or something, same result. I took the disc into the office when I got there and it played just fine on my computer. So, apparently I'm not supposed to listen to books on tape or cd.

It's amazing how quickly the day goes when you get stuck in a conference room for two hours. Of course, the time doesn't go quickly inside the room, just everywhere else. Tomorrow is the last day in November already. 26 days til Christmas. That means only 34 more days til they start advertising the sales for next year.

Well Sid was back and we came away with a win. It wasn't pretty, but it puts them in better standing within their division. Back to back games this weekend and a couple of wins should put them right back on top. The nice thing is, they're hovering right around playoff contention. That will be the true test of the season. Keeping the team on track to make and advance in the playoffs.

Hopefully Sidney will be back tomorrow night. I can handle, a point, but seriously, 2.2 seconds left in the overtime? That's just missed coverage. It's the Rangers, dammit, not a good team. I find it interesting how work ramps back up after a main holiday. Most people, in fact my entire client list, had both Thursday and Friday off. Most of them took Wednesday as well. So, I had two days of relatively stress free catch-up. This morning started off fine. Then around 11 am everyone pretty much called at once with whatever emergency they had just discovered, thus ending any hope of getting real work done period.

Thanksgiving was nice. Not necessarily relaxing, but nice. Gage had a great time playing with my niece. Then later in the evening we headed over to Tom's parent's house. His nephew Eli was there so Gage had another playmate for a while. Hopefully there won't be too much of the black Friday nonsense going on on the way to work tomorrow.

Wednesday didn't go quite as fast as I had hoped, but we did get out of work earlier than normal so I guess it was a wash. So yesterday I was watching celebrity Jeopardy. Does anyone else find it both ironic and disconcerting that the Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings got whomped by Micheal McKean? And I'm not talking about just a couple hundred ahead. I'm talking 3 times the amount of money. The Pens managed a point tonight in a game they should have lost. In fact they came back in a wonderful fashion pushing it to overtime and losing in a shootout against the Bruins. Well, Friday afternoon it's the Islanders and Saturday night it's the Rangers. I'd love to see back to back wins. With New Jersey's loss tonight and a 4 point gain we'd be back on top of the division, where we belong.

The wolf raised his head slightly. His nose had detected something foreign in the air. Water dripped from the exposed fang. The fresh carcass drug to the hole lay on the flat to the left. Three wolves now crept between the watering hole and the flat. To eat meant to fight. As the first aggressor strode forward, the wolf put his head down again toward the water. Then in a flash he was on the aggressor's back and in the same motion pushed him into the tree stunning him. The companions dove at the same time. Crouching low, the wolf was able to gain the advantage and managed to sink his teeth cleanly into a hind leg. Yowling the wolf limped off to lick his wound. Now it was a one on one battle. Seeing his companions down left the third wolf uncertain and it was that weakness that was exploited. A slash to the jaw and the battle was over. Without glancing back, the wolf picked up his kill and trotted toward his home secure in the knowledge that he would not be followed.

Strength comes, not from numbers, but from singular determination.

Here's to a quick Wednesday into the holiday.

Stupid technology. Our phones were getting pretty beat up and this month we crossed that whole new every 2 nonsense. So tonight we headed to the Verizon store and listened to the spiel before explaining to the guy that, "the phone rings, we answer" and sometimes we text message. He tried selling us on some ringback tone nonsense and then upgrading our text messaging (which we have never maxed out). So when we finally got the phones, he transferred our cell numbers (so that hasn't changed for the people who have the numbers) and handed us the phones. I now have a headset that I'll probably never use. One thing that irks me is that the text messaging is set up completely different from my old phone. I haven't quite figured out how to switch it to smart-texting where it will finish my words for me, thus saving me time and energy. So, I have to type in each letter for the moment. Stupid technology.

It's a shame. I brought so much work home this weekend and I've done next to none of it. I know that most people are applauding that I spent my weekend doing other things, but since I was behind on Friday when I left work and I haven't caught myself back up, tomorrow's going to suck. I just have to keep checking til I get into the clear.

Today was my 2 year anniversary at work. I can't believe it's been 2 years already. Mid-July next year and I'll surpass my own record at keeping a job. Of course, that's assuming I make it that long. At least next week is only a 4 day week. That should give me a slight break I guess.

A lot of people at work and several regular readers of this blog watch the new NBC show "Heroes" every week. It's a frequent topic of discussion. One of the guys in the pod next to us will come over, chat briefly about Studio 60 with me and then join the Heroes conversation with two of my other pod-mates. During this week's conversation there was a turn to heroes with super powers and regular people raised to the hero level. The natural flow of the conversation turned to pop culture. Big name actors, rock legends, sports personalities all mentioned in the same sentence as the word hero. But they were mostly in the past...Bogart, Brando, Dylan, Cash, Howe, Lemieux, all guys that are either retired from their profession (either by choice or by nature) or guys that are simply trying to keep a little of their past alive by lacing them up for a pick-up game, playing some benefit concerts, whatever. By the time Gage grows up will there still be heroes? Will there still be someone to look up to? Or will society be jaded beyond the point of raising a common man to an uncommon status based on ability? Since hockey is usually the prevalent theme...will someone like Sidney Crosby have the same level of career that Mario Lemieux did? 90% of the time most of the fans in the arena aren't even sure that Lemieux is in the building. Yet, they simply show a clip of one of his goals or a charitable act and the whole place is on their feet in a standing ovation. And it's not just hometown bias. I thought for sure it would on YouTube, but I couldn't readily find it. When Mario Lemieux first retired from the game of hockey in 1997 it was during the Playoffs. Pittsburgh was playing Philadelphia and ultimately ended up losing the series in Philadelphia. So, at that point, Mario had played his last game on the road. The fans in Philly stood and applauded for several minutes to the point where Lemieux did a farewell lap in the opponent's arena. Ask Matt to confirm, there is no love period between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh in the world of the NHL, but they showed respect to a premier athlete of the game. A man who could change the entire course of a game with one play. People in Pittsburgh sometimes called it Mario Magic. When television did a close-up on Mario, Mike Lange used to warn people about his "hungry" look. When Mario looked hungry, things happened. Will Malkin make a similar impact? Malone, Fleury, Armstrong...will they match up to Orr, Howe, Richard? Doubtful. Will they make their own impact like Trottier, Stevens, Francis? Only time will tell, but it's to the point now where the media is gun-shy to even make comparisons or observations about talent and productivity at any level. Johnny Cash's music is ingrained in the fabric of American society. Will Toby Keith have the same effect? Mark Twain's fiction is available in any book store. Will Stephen King prevail beyond his time? Most people in Pittsburgh and beyond recognize the names of Terry Bradshaw and Jack Ham. How many people remember Roy Gerela? Tom and I had a similar discussion about Entourage and the fact that neither one of us truly bought Grenier's character as the newest hottest actor. He had no presence. Yet when we started looking at the "hot" actors of today, there was no presence among them either. Maybe it's just the cold medicine talking, but I hope that Gage or Nathan or Katie or Nicholas or Andrew or Kadin or Jacob or Norah get to grow up and experience some form of awe over an everday hero, someone who has overcome the odds and still come out on top. Whether that's a famous athlete, a teacher, or even a next door neighbor I hope they are sitting around in 30 years talking (okay rambling) about how impacted they were by childhood and adult "Heroes."

Last night's hockey game was good. It's kind of ironic that getting our seats moved between the first and second periods cost us t-shirts in the third period, but I guess having the extra seat and closer view makes up for it.
After reading Conversations Before Dinner you know that even though they mean well a toddler just won't absorb everything you say. Sometimes you even suspect they might not be listening. But what of the other people in your life? Wife, husband, mother, father, co-workers, boss, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. What happens when you suspect they might not be listening? And then, what happens if it goes beyond suspecting? What if you have proof that your co-worker isn't listening? Your wife? Your parents? Your siblings? I'm not talking about forgetting some minor detail of a conversation that you had 3 years ago about what your favorite color shirt button is on an oxford button down bought after July 4th in an outlet mall on a rainy Tuesday (greyish blue, in case you forgot). I'm talking about big things. I'm talking about the fact that I'm expected to know every nuance of the 78 projects that I currently have going on. But if I send an email to someone and follow up one day later, I get a blank look. Why does the road never go both ways? Am I expecting too much?

Happy Birthday Susie!!!!!!

Hopefully the Pens can turn into the skid tomorrow night when Philadelphia skates into town. We could use another 8-2 whomping in our favor. The past two games haven't exactly been indicative of the season which is a good thing. On a more positive note I'm pretty much caught up on all the television I've been blowing off. That all changes tomorrow when we're at the game and I have to tape Studio 60 again. Since I have to be at work at 7 a.m. on Tuesday I doubt I'm going to be in the mood to come home and skim through 43 minutes of television that you have to pay attention to closely.
Tom had sent me a CNN article on a complete season pickup for Studio 60 which makes me happy. It really surprised me that the article pointed out that Sorkin was aiming for a demographic that was smaller in scope and more refined than advertisers usually strive for. Since I'll have to tape tomorrow's episode, I might do a quick analysis of the commercials.
And, I've got to say, a sketch putting Jesus Christ as the head of the standards and practices bureau of a network would be hilarious.

The two parter episode of South Park that played on Buck Rogers was absolutely hilarious. It made me want to run out and pick up the series just to see the in-jokes that I might have missed due to memory lapses from childhood. Another week gone by and once again I have that sinking feeling of a distinct lack of accomplishment. Often I wonder if therapy might help ease my apprehension in times like that, but then I realize that if I tried to schedule another hour in my week to actually meet with a therapist, I'd get even less done. I believe Joseph Heller described it best.

We have to figure out how to win in overtime. And even more difficult, I have to figure out how to break to my parents that the plans that we changed 4 times for Thanksgiving have to be changed again since I forgot to cross reference it with the hockey schedule. Fun.

Tom was in this weekend and gave me some interesting things for my birthday. The two books were this and this. An interesting mix to say the least. There was also a magnetic bumper-sticker that I didn't really understand how it related to me. It was something to the effect of, "I'll be perfect as soon as I get that walking on water thing down." I'm not sure how this pertains to me. I'm probably the most humble person I know. I mean, I'm truly humble. In all aspects of life. Completely and totally humble.

Tomorrow is election day. Take 5 minutes, pull up your local paper online, make a few informed decisions and VOTE!!!! Previous Americans fought hard to give us the right to vote and exercising that right is a great way to repay them. Besides, I have to hold out that slim hope that one day our politicians we elect will do what's right for America (and not necessarily the party they represent).

Okay, so we're 1 and 1 on the west coast going into Anaheim. I can live with that I guess. Although there was certainly some sloppy hockey played in the shark tank. It just would have been nice to stick it to Ron Wilson again like we did so many years when he was with the Capitals. It's also a shame that Malkin's scoring streak came to an end. But, there were still good things to look at in the game and hopefully they can carry that stuff into the Duck pond and come home on a winning note. Terri's at work all day today pulling a double shift. So, I have the little from 7 am to 9:30 pm. So far so good.

Ah, overtime on the west coast. That meant I climbed into bed somewhere in the vicinity of 1:30 am. Right before I shut off the television, the local sports show has "highlights" of the Pitt/Carnegie Mellon basketball game. I think the score was something like 103 to 45. Let's just say we weren't really on the winning end of that one. Oh well, I guess that's just one more thing the Pitt students can add to their list of things to dislike about their bosses when the Carnegie Mellon students hire them.

I actually got quite a bit accomplished at work. One of my clients is quite a talker, which is actually a nice break occasionally. I'm working, so I don't feel guilty about it. A large portion of my job is good customer service. What's funny is that this particular client has been working with me in various capacities for well over a year and she might carry enough weight to have me flown to Chicago to meet her and her staff. I doubt it's going to come about, but it's kind of funny. Putting a face to a voice on the phone is always interesting.
The west coast swing isn't starting off as well as I had hoped, but maybe they can pull it out.
Oh, and my usual yearly rant...It's 11/1 and we're shopping for one of Gage's little friends who is having a birthday party. I'm expecting to get good deals on some Halloween candy that's been slashed because of the packaging. Instead, when I wander back to the seasonal section of Target I see one small section of some pumpkins and a couple costumes and 8 aisles of Christmas assorted merchandise. Christmas. Dammit, if I ran the world Christmas wouldn't be allowed to start until the day after Thanksgiving. That would be law.

I guess I forgot to mention it, mostly because I could care less that my birthday has come and gone yet again. I'm a year older and the only difference is that I now have to remember exactly how old I actually am. However, Terri did go out of her way to get me a nice gift. I'll have to post a picture of it. It's a framed picture of Kevin Stevens and Mario Lemieux standing on the ice with their backs to the camera watching one set of the Stanley Cup Banners being raised to the rafters of the Igloo. So, now I have two of my three favorite hockey players of all time in a great shot of Penguins history.
Why is it in a situation where everyone is floundering, on-edge, and tension is stretching everyone to the max that the one or two people trying to keep it all together feel the most persecuted?

Why can't I just buy something at the store like everyone else? They decided last week to hold a pot-luck dinner at work tomorrow. I, of course, signed up to make a cake. Which means that it's now 11:00 at night and I have a cake cooling and icing chilling and I'm probably looking at another 2 or 3 hours to put it all together in a coherent fashion. It would be nice if I could just go down to the store, pick out a cake and be done with it in about 11 minutes, including drive time. At least Terri was nice enough to make the icing. That saved me at least 45 minutes.

Wow, 8-2. Crosby's first NHL hat trick. Another short handed goal for the Penguins, which means they should be tops in the league in that category. Oh and as sweet as the win is, it's made all the better by the fact that the opponent was Philadelphia and the game was in Philadelphia. Hopefully the Pens will fare well on their west coast swing for the next week or so. The Kings aren't doing so well, but Anaheim is on a roll so we'll see. We came to the realization at work that we were less than 10 weeks away from the end of the year. Single digits!?! Where the hell did the summer go? I swear that yesterday was May.

Well, today wasn't as good a day, but I still managed to get stuff done. Now I just have to put together a viable costume before tomorrow night's party and I'm golden. I did get to watch the Charlie Brown Halloween special, "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown." Gage seemed to like it, but it will be a few years before he understands the whole thing.
The Pens are playing Philadelphia in Philadelphia tomorrow night. After tomorrow the season series will stand Pittsburgh 2 Philadelphia 0. That will put the Pens back on top in the division and the Flyers will still be last in the league. Ah, what a refreshing change from last year.

Today was actually a pretty decent day at work. Got a bunch of stuff done, got more work into the queue to be done and no one really had any complaints. That probably means that tomorrow is gonna suck. I realized today that we're less than a week from November. No truly special significance in that fact unless you flash back to my life one year ago (also an especially busy time at work) and look at all the things that were going on. Then you'll know that I realized that I wouldn't be able to participate in NaNoWriMo. For the writers in the crowd you'll know what I'm talking about. For everyone else, National Novel Writing Month runs from November 1st to November 30th. The object is to turn out a 50,000 word novel in that time span. So, I was a little sad to realize that another year would pass before I could participate. That same sadness came back today as I realized that I couldn't even remotely think about participating this year either. I realize that I post here fairly steadily, but I don't write anywhere near as often as I should. And I'm not honing any skills posting ramblings about Malkin and Crosby's goals or Gage's latest escapades. Can you smell the self-pity? Oh well, it's late, more work to finish and endless odds and, well, ends.

Server Migration complete and late night testing all done. It's probably the closest I'll get to one of those online gamer experiences with emails and ims shooting back and forth coordinating all the portal testing. Now I can get back to just regular work for another couple of hours or so. Just a couple of great hockey clips to watch both old and new. The first one is from Tuesday night's game against the Devils. Crosby and Malkin make Brodeur look like the last kid picked in gym class wearing his older brother's pads pouting because he has to play goal. The second one happened on Wednesday December 27th, 2000 in the 2nd period. It's Mario's first goal after retirement. Almost everyone in the arena was focused on the puck and not many caught the pass to Mario streaking down the slot. He doesn't often miss from there.

Not much going on recently. I'm still trying to get everything righted in the house after the wedding weekend. I've got most of the cds put away. I still have to hook up the stereo equipment and get all the cassettes put away. Tonight's hockey game went really well. We started the game up in F level and due to a few nice connections ended up in C level for the last two periods. Terri took Gage out for just a few minutes in the 3rd period and missed the prettiest Malkin goal yet. He made Brodeur look like a whiny teenager stuck in goal by default in a street hockey pick up game.
On the downside of things, I think I'm coming down with a cold or I'm allergic to something.

After not dj'ing for more than 5 years I packed up all my stuff to come out of retirement yet again for Mitch's wedding. Friday night I left work, hit 3 record stores, came home, integrated and catalogued all the new cds and began packing them up. I went to sleep at 4:30 in the morning and still wasn't finished. Got back up at 9, finished packing all the cds, packed up all the tapes, decided to not take the records, broke down all the stereo equipment and then Terri and I made approximately 45 trips between the two of us getting everything up to the truck. Thankfully the place where the wedding/reception was held had a door we could back the truck up to. Then it was only a short walk across the floor to get everything set up. Of course at the end of the night we had to do everything in reverse. I'll have to post the picture of what the truck looked like with everything packed up. When Terri and I got home we just grabbed some of the stereo stuff and left everything else til morning. Then my wonderful wife let me sleep in while she unloaded everything that was left. Sunday we headed down to my parents to return the truck and celebrate my niece's 2nd birthday. She and Gage had a good time with all her new toys.

So yesterday at work we got into a "discussion" about art at work. This article is what sparked the whole thing. One of the guys in my "pod" made the statement that anyone who bought a work of art of that caliber should have to give the painting to a museum where everyone can enjoy the work as the artist intended. So this led to a whole discussion on where you could draw this line. He claimed that anyone spending that kind of money on a painting was motivated by nothing but ego and greed. He refused to admit that appreciation could be a motivating factor. "All art is created for the people and meant for the people and private collectors are all greedy bastards." Now, to an extent he's probably right, but what about everyone else? Is it fair to deny me a work of art from an artist that I love simply because I'm able to afford it? When asked what the millionaire should keep at his house, he answered that there are enough high quality reproductions and prints that one could use in place of the real thing (which should be on permanent loan to a museum). Of course, it couldn't work the other way. Even though the reproductions are of a high enough quality, they aren't suitable for the museum and everyone else, but the millionaire should settle.
I'm eager to hear other people weigh in on this. I know it seems a little scattered and the way I'm putting forth the argument it's certainly skewed in my favor. Here's the argument I'm giving as one scenario. Let's say that Da Vinci lived next door to my great-great-great-great-great grandfather (yeah, not enough greats, but let's just go for the sake of argument). Da Vinci thinks my relative's house and grounds look great in the setting sunlight. So he paints the grounds and gives the painting to my relative. He gives it to his son. His son gives it to his son and so on down through the generations til it gets to my grandfather. Grandpa sits me on his lap in the living room at least once a visit and tells me the story about how the great Leonardo Da Vinci painted this painting of our relative's estate. Grandpa dies and wills the painting to my dad just like every generation prior. My dad dies and wills the painting to me. Now, everyone in the family suspects that this painting is worth millions and it probably is. But I'd never even consider selling the painting. I'd only have it appraised to keep the insurance accurate. But it would never be sold. Why? Because that painting means more to me as a family heirloom full of stories and sentiment than it does as a multi-million dollar Da Vinci. This argument was summarily dismissed. So, now I'm interested in how you the reader view the distribution of art and one of a kind treasures. Allowable for the private collector or only suitable for public consumption?

I have a huge post boiling up based on a conversation/argument at work today, but first I must interrupt and say FIRST GOAL IN THE NHL BABY!!!!
That's right, Evgeni Malkin popped his first goal past Martin Brodeur in the 2nd period to tie the game at 1. Sadly the Pens didn't pull out the win, but they did manage to pile up some shots. So, hopefully the tandem of Crosby, Malkin, and Staal will dazzle the people of Pittsburgh for years to come. With complement players like Malone, Armstrong, and Ouellet and veterans like Recchi and LeClair, I think we have a solid season. We just need to string together some wins. We're on the road tomorrow so hopefully that will go well. I should have time tomorrow to get into the work discussion. I'm very interested in seeing how the 1 or 2 readers out there actually weigh in on the discussion.

Hopefully Veronica Mars is finding a big enough audience on Tuesday nights on the new CW. I'd hate to see plot lines not wrapped up on that show. I'm not quite sure about Ed Begley Jr's character yet, but maybe he'll face the same fate as Steve Guttenberg. Gage's daycare gave us the heads-up that they're going to be selling Sarris Candy for Christmas. I understand the fundraiser aspect. I understand that chocolate, especially Sarris, is a welcome addition to the holidays. What I don't understand is why they try and pack it in around Christmas. Why not have an April fundraiser when no one else is really selling much and there's less competition? It's the same argument I have with television. Soap Operas are on 52 weeks a year and rarely miss a day's episode. Why can't network television follow a similar structure? The first network that figures out how to have a large ensemble show that rotates story lines and characters to accomodate vacations will build a viewership that will top ER, CSI, and Friends in their respective heydays.

When I was little my family didn't do big vacations. Dad owned his own business and we rarely went far from home. We didn't trek to the Grand Canyon or Disneyworld or places like that. We went camping or to visit family. Those trips rarely required more than 4 or so hours and didn't really take us on interstates or turnpikes. So as a child we didn't play the license plate game the way a lot of people did. We didn't gather states like other people did. We usually started with A and went down through the alphabet using billboards, plates, and roadsigns. However, when 4 different states (none bordering Pennsylvania) passed us on the turnpike mid-Friday morning Terri and I started watching and over the course of the weekend we saw 30 different states, Washington, D.C., Ontario, and a PA plate for Barbershoppers. I thought that was a pretty good haul on about an 8 hour total drive on the same stretch of turnpike. As I said yesterday there were probably a lot more stories I could tell, but most of them would require too much backstory to make it enjoyable. Anyway, I need to wrap it up for Studio 60 and the huge amount of work that needs to get done.

Well, we made it to the hotel (after a detour to the Boyd's Bear Outlet store and several phone calls from the office) with about 25 minutes til we were supposed to depart the hotel for the reahearsal dinner. And Terri and I both needed to shower and I needed to shave. So, we checked in and raced upstairs to our room and made it down in record time. We made it to the rehearsal dinner and started the process of mingling. With the size of Terri's extended family, that takes quite a while. The following day we had a lot of time to kill before the wedding. Then at 4:45 we got on the bus that was to take us to the wedding/reception site. Things got started about 15 or so minutes late and we were in a side room off the chapel which was about twice the size of my current living room. For those of you that haven't been in our living room, that's not very big even at double the size. The rest of the wedding went well and now we're back. I'll probably have some more stories to tell, but I'm trying to get acclimated now that I'm back so I'll just go.

Well, I'm still working to get clear for tomorrow. Theoretically I could work from this moment until I pull away in the car tomorrow morning and still be behind so that's not much help. I do need to accomplish enough tonight so that my QA partner isn't overwhelmed. No sense both of us being stressed. Well, I missed the game tonight since we were at a friend's house, but thanks to the sports package actually benefiting me for once, the Madison Square Garden channel plays all of the Rangers games in 60 minutes so I get to see the outcome, the highlights and in about half the time. So far the game is going well, but it's opened up. After a scoreless first there have been 9 goals so far in the past 30 minutes. And with about 4 seconds to go the Pens go up by the winning score of 6-5. Woo-hoo! That's great so far this year. 3 games and we've won 2 (which is good in and of itself) and those two have been against big east coast rivals the Flyers and the Rangers.

One more day and then a break. Hope I can make it. Oh well, it's time for bed none the less. The bargain bin at the house of Satan actually had some decent picks so I'll have to update the movie selections that I just got.

It's truly not worth having a day off in a company where your work isn't covered while you are out. In my office at Pitt, there were 5 or 6 other people that did the stuff I did, at least until I started being a full time special projects bitch. So, prior to that, I could take a day, a long weekend, or a week and come back and there would be no stress about how to prioritize the stuff that was stacking up while I was gone. No emails to go through or at least no important ones. I've spent the past three days prepping for having Friday off. It's going to take me all of Wednesday and Thursday just to pull into being a little behind before I leave. Then depending on internet access throughout the weekend, I could be anywhere from 2-5 days behind when I get back on Monday.
And, although as I scan back recent posts, I realize that people might get the impression that I don't like my job or I'm unhappy. On the contrary, I really like my job and the people I work with. I just wish my clients would lighten up a little bit. There's no reason to push 80 programs live in the span of 3 months. Especially since we're just not completely equipped to deal with that amount of work.

Another great Studio 60 show. It's beginning to make me want to seek out the West Wing and I can't stand politics.
I like the fact that the show is about plagurism. We were discussing that at work today among designers. Apparently, they knew a couple of people in Pittsburgh who were passing off work that wasn't theirs in their portfolio. Now that might fly if you were moving from one city to another or lived in a large area like LA or New York, but the internet industry in Pittsburgh is incestuous. We don't need 6 degrees here in Pittsburgh, we can do it in 3 degrees or less. When I first started out, my portfolio contained two pieces that weren't solely mine. One was a straight co-authorship (that I did the majority of the work on anyway, because I don't play well with others) and the other was a group project that was split in sections that I could attribute correctly. The funny thing was, I ended up using them as less than the projects they should have been because they weren't completely representative of me. I do agree with the sentiment expressed of a writer plagurizing either knowingly or inadvertently. Any decent writer (and by decent I mean remotely moral or dedicated to the craft of writing) won't even come close to taking an idea or a concept let alone the words that express them.

So the Pens are 1-1 which is still a large improvement over last season. And, although it's certainly still a big question mark over the season, it's hard to hang a 2-0 loss on the goaltender, especially when he's not to blame for either shot.
Interestingly enough, I ran into an old college friend when I saw him flash across the jumbo-tron at the hockey game. So, I ended up at a dinner on Friday night with 30 college students, most of whom are a decade or more younger than I am. It also got me out of bed on a 6:30 Saturday morning to see the first morning of fall rolls for buggy. Of course, since Tom was in town I managed to drag him out too. Then he, Gage, and I came back home and took a nice mid-morning nap. That gave us enough energy to make the Detroit/Pens game on Saturday night. And, through various circumstances, I still haven't sat in the season seats that I paid for. I'm 4 for 4 in not making my own seats.

OPENING NIGHT BABY!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Birthday Mom, Mario, Patrick, John, and Sarah.

Just to start the taunting a tad early...Go Home Flyers!

Tonight is the season premiere of Veronica Mars. If you haven't seen the show before, it's a good time to start. The CW has only picked up half a season and they need to build an audience fast. Otherwise, this will be another one of those shows cancelled before it's time. And, it's a really good show. I have seasons 1 and 2 on DVD and it's by far better than most of the television that the other networks are throwing at you. Hopefully it will build off the Gilmore Girls audience (which I'm told is also a good show) and get picked up for the full season. Well in any case, one guy on the LaPlaca will be happy if it gets cancelled. I don't know if that's a good sign or a bad sign that only one person picked it. Well, it's off to get some things accomplished, break for Veronica Mars, get more stuff done and hopefully make it into bed before 1.

Spamalot was good. Unless you ask Terri. Can you transplant a sense of humor? Geesh. It was interesting to see the updates from the movie to the play. Although a lot of the shock value that used to be inherent in things like that has been diminished by shows like South Park.
Well, so far, my new plan for time planning hasn't quite taken off. I hope to get it into full swing tomorrow, but we'll see. It's kind of sad that I don't actually have time to put my time management plan into action. Oh well, time to chuck it all and go watch Studio 60.
P.S. Still a damn good show, three episodes in. I'm not a big fan of ending on the musical montage. I'm hoping that's not a Sorkin trademark. Also, since I missed Banned Books week to talk about it, here's my quote, and I'm paraphrasing here (if someone finds the actual quote, I'll be happy to amend)..."When you find out a book is being banned, walk, no run to your library, the book store, wherever you can find that book and don't stop til you've read it cover to cover to find out what they don't want you to know." Stephen King

Well, Terri knows now and I guess I can actually blog about it with no fear.
For our anniversary, I bought Terri season tickets to the Penguins hockey games. Yes, I know, it seems more like a present for me, but she loves the games too. Anyway, in doing that it meant that I had to give away the two home preseason games for two reasons. One, we had other plans both nights and two, it would be a little hard to explain preseason tickets that we typically don't come by. So, I had to part with both of them and boy was it painful. Although in addition to the people that got the tickets, one girl at work truly benefited. With my discount, I got her and her boyfriend seats for his birthday 4 rows off the ice for $120. You're paying over $200 for the seats if you just head over to the box office or ticketmaster. And yes, we must have had a good anniversary, or an extremely boring one. Terri's still sleeping. Although that could be because this is the first full night's sleep she's gotten in months. There are days I feel sorry for Gage for having the same sleep patterns that I do, but I know that for every day where he feels like crap because his body won't let him sleep, there will be multiple days (mostly in college) where he'll be able to just keep going and get everything done that needs to be done. But, in the meantime, that means we (and by we, I mean Terri since he never wakes me up) will just have to deal with the fallout.
Oh, and Matt the Pens play the Flyers at home on October 5th, November 13th, December 13th and March 4th (which is a Sunday afternoon game).

"On Friday nights, I'm bulletproof."

14 Years

14 years of watching you change (for the better of course)
14 years of happy memories
14 years of pretty much being on our own
14 years of hugs and kisses
14 years of dreams and wishes
14 years of friends that stay and friends that go
14 years of days and nights by your side
14 years of the world going by without changing our love
14 years of movies, concerts, sporting events, vacations, and reunions
14 years of a love that isn't going to give up
14 years of proving to everyone else we can make it 14 years
14 years of reflection to the past and to the future
14 years of cd collection (now that's love)
14 years is just a small piece of the lifetime we have left

Here's to many more multiples of 14. I love you now and I'll love you always, Terri. Between now and then til I see you again, I'll be loving you, Love me.

"Any arbitrary turning and I'd be somewhere else entirely." Is that a bad thing or a good thing? That all depends on how happy you are with your current situation I guess.
So, based on a recent conversation..."What's a big scandal in your everyday life?" If you found out your parents had you before they were married and never told you, would that be a big scandal? Granted, that one probably only works if you were a first-born child. If you found out your best friend had a fling the day before he/she was married? The day after? If you were best man or maid of honor at a wedding that didn't happen? Or a wedding that was a complete sham since the couple had run off to Vegas the month before or a year before? What if your boss were gay? A cross-dresser? Just curious as to what might rock a reader's world close to home as opposed to the scandals potrayed by television.

Well, the Pens have only won two of five pre-season games, but both have been against the Flyers so I'm ok with that. I was talking about Malkin at work today and one of the guys who is just a casual follower didn't realize that he had been hurt. So I'm explaining the graphic nature of the fall and he asked if it was a highlight. Since they showed the play over and over, we figured it had to be on YouTube. He pulled up YouTube on his computer and did a simple search on Malkin. It was on the first page of results. Just so everyone's on the same page.

So I'm trying a new approach to life. Nothing to excess anymore. No more 3 AM shifts trying to nail down everything at once. No more than one client per night, if I bring work home at all. Same goes for work at home. Things will get done all in good time. A good list of priorities and vanity projects aside. Hopefully things will start following fast and furious. It's similar to the theory about 45 minutes per night per class. No more, no less and eventually you learn to fit in the work that you have into the time you've allotted. We'll see. I'll start in earnest next week so right now I'm in the midst of tying up the loose ends.

Your Birthdate:

You have a Type A personality so big it makes other Type A's shrink away in shame. You never shy away from adversity - and you love to tackle impossible problems. Failure is not an option for you, and more than a few people are put off by your ego. You tend to be controlling, and you hate leaving anything up to chance. Your strength: Your bold approach to life Your weakness: You don't accept help Your power color: Bronze Your power symbol: Pyramid Your power month: October

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

Somehow, I can't help by wonder how technology can be this far about me. That description couldn't be less truthful if Captain Pirate Head had written it. (For those of you that don't know Captain Pirate Head, he's the McDonald's happy meal toy from the Pirates of the Carribbean movie that mimics a magic 8-Ball. We've discovered he's a habitual liar). The Pens seem to be able to go the distance during the pre-season, they just need to learn how to close it out before or during overtime.

You Should Be a Film Writer

You don't just create compelling stories, you see them as clearly as a movie in your mind. You have a knack for details and dialogue. You can really make a character come to life. Chances are, you enjoy creating all types of stories. The joy is in the storytelling. And nothing would please you more than millions of people seeing your story on the big screen!

What Type of Writer Should You Be?

Guess I should throw that whole novelist notion out the window then.

Should I be concerned that instead of a cuddly stuffed bear or a toy truck, Gage runs around with little stuffed Pinky and the Brain dolls singing the theme song and yelling, "Narf!"?
It was nice to see the Pens semi-dominate the Flyers. It's hard to get a good sense considering most of the big big guns weren't on the ice. Although we saw Evgeni Malkin for about half a game. Then came his collision with John LeClair and subsequent trip to the hospital. No one seems to have any news. Ray Shero, who seemed to be smirking a little too much for my tastes, said that Malkin was cleared to fly home and be re-evaluated by doctors in Pittsburgh. So, hopefully it will be something easily fixed by hanging out for a few days and he'll be ready for opening night. And, I know that the commercial blocks were bought in advance, but I certainly didn't need to see the Malkin promo announcing "The Wait is Over." every other commercial break.
Oh well, the Pens are at .500 right now and that's certainly better than last season. So, we'll see how things continue in the pre-season. It'll be interesting to see what the final roster is going to look like.

Studio 60 certainly lived up to the hype. Excellent show. It's a shame they can't keep Judd Hirsch and Felicity Huffman around longer. I'm not quite decided on Stephen Weber and Sarah Paulson, but I'm along for the ride. I think I'm going to try and catch the premieres for 6 Degrees and 30 Rock as well as catching up on the second season of Veronica Mars.
Also, it was nice to once again see my genes come out in Gage. I raced out of work at exactly 6:00 this evening. I got home right around 6:30 and Gage was sitting in his chair in the living room. He was getting ready to watch Dragon Tales and I persuaded him to let me change the channel for just a minute to show him something. What did I want to show him?
HOCKEY BABY!!!!!!!
That's right. Penguin's pre-season hockey started this evening. As soon as Gage saw Sidney Crosby step on the ice, cartoons were completely forgotten about. Sadly, the Pens dropped the game, but I saw good things from some of their draft picks and young players. I still think we need a go-to goaltender. Fleury isn't there. Not yet. Maybe never. Who knows?

Tonight is Studio 60's premiere so I'm going to try to catch that. Hopefully I'll be able to see a few new shows here and there this year. Last year was the worst year of network television for me. I don't think there was one show that I watched regularly. In fact, I think the only thing that I caught the majority of the episodes for was Entourage and I certainly didn't catch all those when they first aired. Thankfully HBO reruns them over and over. I'm still working on making it through the second season of Veronica Mars.

On Thursday night we headed to the Warner's house for dinner. Gage had resisted napping all day so, of course, he fell asleep before we got there. So, Katie had to wait for her playmate to wake up. Andrew is getting big and crawls very quickly. Gage and Katie seemed to have a wonderful time playing together. We managed to get hold of someone at the Mutchler household and that someone was, Alison! She's home. Still not 100%, but getting there. So that was good news.
Friday I left work early and went to the memorial service that Carnegie Mellon held for the 7 alumni who were lost 5 years ago on September 11th. Oddly enough I ran into a very old friend, Erik Larson, that I hadn't seen in quite a while. So, I got to catch up with Erik and be swayed toward doing more alumni related things for the University. Erik is on the board of directors or some such council. I guess I probably should consider it. I certainly don't have the money to pour back into the University, I guess I should give it some time. After that, I drove home, picked up Terri and Gage and headed out to our Pastor's house for a meeting of the 20's and 30's. Our church is very small so they are attempting to group us together in order to have us become more invovled in the life of the church. It was interesting to actually interact with them on a social level. It was a point that was brought up at the meeting. We certainly know one another to see each other, but we didn't really interact on any level other than, "Hi, how are you?" I learned a lot during the meeting.
Saturday I ended up getting a call early in the morning from my brother asking for help rearranging things in his storage locker. I found out that my mother's washer had broken and the service guy couldn't make it til Thursday. So my brother wanted to get his washer out of storage until Thursday and then switch them back. The problem is that his washing machine was all the way in the back. Before I could talk him out of it, he was already there and had a large pathway uncovered toward it. So for the next several hours we hoisted boxes and furniture around and over and through the maze of things in order to free up a washing machine for 4 days that, when we arrived home, I realized he hadn't asked my parents about. Sometimes I wonder about my family.

Lots to blog about in the upcoming days about past events if you can follow that. Just need a few minutes to sit down and sort it all out. I thought that was going to be today, but I ended up helping my brother rearrange a storage locker for no apparent reason.