Cup Fever, Lord Stanley, and the Beard

Tonight begins the best tournament in sports. Forget the NFL playoffs, the World Series, The Chase for the Cup (although that sounds quite similar), The Final Four, Whatever nonsense Basketball calls their crap, this is it. 16 teams, 7 game series, 16 wins over the course of 2 months and you can hold the Holy Grail of Hockey.
So, here are my picks for the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs (as well as a whole lot of hopin.)

Western Conference

1 - Detroit
vs.
8 - Nashville
Nashville is the huge underdog in this series and not just because Detroit won the President's trophy with the best record in the NHL. They are under-experienced in the playoffs even with the addition of Jason Arnott. I'd love to see Nashville pick it up, but I don't think they have the playoff motor primed and ready. Even though they beat Detroit 3 times in the regular season (and came close to making it 5) I think it's going to be Detroit in 6.

2 - San Jose
vs.
7 - Calgary
I don't know much about either team in this series, beyond the fact that a lot of analysts seem to think it'll be the Sharks and Pens in the final (though I disagree with their outcome). I think San Jose is going to make short work of Calgary. San Jose in 5.

3 - Minnesota
vs.
6 - Colorado
Don't know much about this series either. I'm not sure how much of an impact that Forsberg made in the regular season, but I do know he's a handy guy to have around in the playoffs provided he's healthy. I'm going to have say that Minnesota has their number and will take them in a 7 game series.

4 - Anaheim
vs.
5 - Dallas
Anaheim is the defending cup champ and Dallas is known for early and often playoff exits. I think Turco has decided that this is his year to turn that around. Dallas in 7.

Eastern Conference

1 - Montreal
vs.
8 - Boston
Montreal shouldn't have too much difficulty with this series. Tim Thomas isn't ready to carry a team deep, though neither is Carey Price, but with Kovalev filling up the net like he used to, I think it'll be Montreal in 6.

2 - Pittsburgh
vs.
7 - Ottawa
Ah, the rematch from last season. Although the tables are turned and Ottawa is scattered to the injured reserve winds, they have a yappy jackass coach and the experience to dig deep. Unless the Pens can get to them early and often in the first two games, I think this will a little farther than most people think. However, it will be the Wizard of Cros standing at the end of 6 games.

3 - Washington
vs.
6 - Philadelphia
This series will probably be the most brutal in the East. Ovechkin, the face of the Caps picked up the team and carried them into the post-season by kicking Carolina out at the last possible minute. Philadelphia has had an up and down year from sitting atop the division to being on the outside looking in during the last week of the season. They're also a little battered. Biron is not the wall they need him to be and with Ovechkin, Backstrom, and the late acquisition of Federov I think Washington will walk away in 7.

4 - New Jersey
vs.
5 - New York Rangers
Ug, can they both lose? Even though the Rangers have beaten up on New Jersey throughout the season, Brodeur has the ability to put up the invisible force-field in front of his net which will frustrate Jagr to no end and a frustrated Jagr is a whiny cry-baby Jagr and so long have a nice day. Jersey in 7.

So, there you have it. My predictions, half speculation, half hoping, half informed (as usual...I mean what do you expect from a guy with three halves.)

And, though I'm going round by round, you're cordially invited to Pittsburgh in late June or early July for the Stanley Cup rally. I wonder if Snowball will be around to watch?

To Count Or Not To Count

Hmmm, I know that one of the stipulations that I had for the 150 movies over the course of the year is that they were movies that I hadn't seen yet. Whether or not they were at the theater, on dvd, or on satellite didn't seem to matter. However, one thing I hadn't taken into consideration was how they were released. I'm wondering, do I count made for TV movies? I'm curious because this weekend I can either count 4 movies, or 1 depending on how the vote swings. However, the one that definitely counts is Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
When I was growing up, it was in a small town with very little in the way of culture. I believe the bowling alley was probably the mecca of civilization. So, I tried to, in essence, "collect" as many different experiences as I could. I tried to venture to Pittsburgh as often as I could to help me out in my quest. This continued right up until college, actually, it hasn't ever really stopped, but my freshman year in college I was exposed to so many different items at different levels it felt like culture shock. One of the things that sticks out vividly in my mind was almost a fluke. My junior year of high school they decided to begin doing musicals. Outside of The Wizard of Oz, Mary Poppins, and The Sound of Music, I wasn't really acquainted with musicals. So, I sort of dove in headfirst. But, until my freshman year of college all I had exposure to were the "normal" musicals. Then, a dramat (drama major) on my floor gave me tickets to Sweeney Todd. I was hooked. At that point, I realized that just like everything else in the world, musicals could be twisted and outside the norm. I had the soundtrack within a week and to this day it's still one of my favorite musicals. However, given it's graphic nature it doesn't get many runs in the traditional sense. So, when it came to Pittsburgh earlier this year, I was there. So, I've seen two very different stage versions and had every intention of seeing the movie when it came out. Of course, with a three year old, making it to the theater for an R rated movie. So, it passed out of the theaters and I almost missed my chance. Then I noticed that one of the cheap theaters in the area picked it up. So, yesterday, we headed down to the 1:15 show thinking that maybe Gage would nap through most of it. Since the theater was also showing The Bee Movie, Terri opted to take him to see that while I went to see Sweeney Todd. I'm glad I went. Johnny Depp did not diappoint. From the minute the score started pumping through the surround sound, I knew it was going to be a good movie. I'd definitely see it again in the theater given the chance. I will be picking up the soundtrack for the movie, even though they shortened or cut some of the songs. I'll also be picking up the DVD when it comes out.
After taking the assessment of made for tv movies, I'll update the counter on the right.
Oh, and today Gage and I got to see the Pens flatten the Flyers 7-1. Gotta love it. That brings the season series a little closer.

14 Years...

of moneymaking, media and pop culture dominance, introducing a mystical world into an otherwise drab "muggle" one, etc. etc.
I am, of course, speaking of Harry Potter and his creator JK Rowling. Although her history with Harry spans much further back, (in fact, another 7 years for 21 total...what is it with this woman and 7's?), the first Harry Potter book was offered to the world at large in 1997. And, rumors confirmed today that the seventh Harry Potter book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" will be split into two parts for a film adaptation with part 1 hitting in November of 2010 and part 2 hitting in May of 2011 (hence the 14 years from '97). The article can be found here for further reading. Contrary to the cynics who are claiming a pure money driven motive, I'm actually glad that it's being split. I like seeing film versions be as true as possible. Hopefully, with the extra film, they'll come close to keeping the plot mostly intact, as opposed to some of the other movies. Honestly, I'm hoping for someone truly ambitious, connected, and wealthy actually goes back at some point 25 or 50 years in the future and remakes all 7 books keeping sub-plots, timelines, and characters intact. The chances of that happening are slim to none because Warner Brothers isn't going to give up a cash franchise that easily unless they have some sort of major stake in the new one. I figure that 25-30 years is going to put some kid who was maybe 7 or 8 when this hoopla started at about just the right age itching to see it done better. (As an aside, I'm at work [didn't want to lose the narrative thread I had in my head] and while listening to the next album up in line, the song 7 Days comes on. Maybe I should go play triple 7's for tonight since I didn't win the Powerball yesterday). Seriously, most of the stuff getting remade nowadays comes from people of our generation who grew up and cut our teeth on this stuff and don't want to see it fade. Why else do we see remakes like Dukes of Hazzard, Bionic Woman, Dallas, Knight Rider, The Incredible Hulk, Wonder Woman, Willie Wonka, etc. Hell, I think the only show they haven't touched is The Waltons and who wants to see that again? Good-Night John Boy. Anyway, done correctly, with a consistent vision (hello gap between 2 and 3, did we hire Trading Spaces to come in and redecorate?) and keeping the books intact, I think it would be good. The 7 or 8 year old with the nostalgia for "his" franchise (because like we owned Star Wars, this kid owns Potter) would be hitting his mid-to late 40s and looking back on what once was. It could happen. Maybe, it should happen. I guess that will have to wait until Christmas of 2011 when the super deluxe special edition of all 7 movies hits shelves just in time for holiday cheer.

"I'll Take The Rapists For $200 Alex"

"That's therapists, not the rapists."
Yes, certainly Sean Connery has his favorite categories on Celebrity Jeopardy. And, an old episode of Cheers had Cliff see his stacked board on the game show. Yesterday, for the first time in a while, I managed to get a chance to sit down and watch Jeopardy. It was a pretty normal game til they announced the categories for
Double Jeopardy. One of the categories was something to the effect of, Quotes from Bruce Willis movies. Terri started laughing and remarked that it was my dream category. And, I did go 5 for 5 on the answers of, "Look Who's Talking," "The Sixth Sense," "The Siege," "12 Monkeys," and "Armageddon."
So, that's 1 out of 11 categories for my dream Jeopardy game. Although I would have used quotes from "Striking Distance," "Hudson Hawk," and the Die Hard movies.
I'm currently watching the Penguins crush the Buffalo Sabres. The score now is 7-3 in favor of the Pens. Gage must be loving the scoring. I'm sure Mommy is getting a ton of high-fives. I was doing some quick figuring on the 150 movies and realized that my movie watching would certainly pick up after hockey season. Hopefully, hockey season for the Penguins will drag on til June. I'll take that.

It's Been A While

Well, of course, I blame work. That lovely catch-all. But enough about a crappy subject. So, I hit several milestones on the lists. I got the first season of TV out of the way, I finished my first novel, and hit 10 movies. All in all, slow progress for it being at the beginning of the third month. But I still have 9 months for 14 more novels, 140 more movies, and 4 more seasons of TV. I have started the next novel and the next season. If all goes well with the seasons of television, I will complete two series with the 5 seasons. Two seasons of F-Troop and 3 seasons of Arrested Development. I would like to finish The Baby Whisperer (book 2) and then head into the 7 Dark Tower books, the Mumia Abu Jamal book Tom gave me for Christmas, and then fill in with 5 other books I've been meaning to read. Although that list fluctuates a lot more. I'd also like to pull several more movies out of my collection to finish as well, but I haven't gotten there. I'm guessing I'll have more television/movie watching time once hockey season is over.
Speaking of hockey, interesting trades. We'll have to see how everything works out. Right now, the Penguins are atop the Eastern Conference. If the playoffs started today, we'd be matched up against the Flyers. Ick. Perhaps the Flyers will lose a few more and fall out of contention all together. Anyway, Crosby is back, Fleury is back, all we need to see now is a healthy Hossa and perhaps Gary Roberts. Hopefully they can ride March into a great playoff match-up and we'll see how deep they go. Oh, and if anyone knows any good girl names, we'll certainly take them under consideration. But they have to be better than Snowball and Broomhilda.

Collecting To Excess And Then Rebuilding

First the rebuilding, mostly because I think it's funnier.
Though I'm not a big baseball fan, I would totally buy this shirt. Tom sent me both that, and this article. It's going to be a long season, I think. On the bright side, they haven't lost a meaningful game yet. I think I'd like to get a t-shirt with the Steelers logo, the Pens logo, and the Pirates logo. Beneath the three logos, "Two Outta Three Ain't Bad"
Now, the next two links deal with collecting to excess. I'll freely admit, my mom is a packrat. Thankfully, I did not inherit this gene. I do, however, enjoy watching my own collections grow. Recently with the posting of the pictures of the library and conversations with some people at work, I've been accused of being a packrat and having too much stuff. I don't think I'm overly afflicted with this. Four things that people automatically leap to point out at my house are (in no particular order) legos, books, music, and movies. However, as I'm sure others will back me on, I know
one person that's got me beat in both movies and legos. Hands down. No contest. Yes, I do have a lot of books at my house, but I have a passion for the written word, both to read and to write. I also have an antique typewriter, three electric typewriters, and a word processor. Anyway, I came across the following two items on back to back days and I don't think that I want to hear anything about my collections ever again.
This collection makes me wish I had three million dollars. I'd probably spend the whole first month of ownership just browsing.
This woman needs some sort of intervention/beating/help/therapy or all of the above. This woman puts my mother to shame. The post has a ton of pictures to load, but it's worth it. Reading the descriptions are even funnier.
So, my collections are just average, everyday normal collections. Just like I've always said.

Retratction!

I guess I should pay more attention to the comments section. I opened it up for revising the answer and then promptly forgot that Randy had upped his guess to 3,500. So, he was the closest to the actual number of books without going over and I guess he gets to keep his showcase showdown. Not much else is going on recently. I watched the Daytona 500 and saw lots of old race footage since it was the 50th Anniversary running. That was pretty cool. I also had 6 of my 8 drivers finish in the top 20 which is a decent week. The other 2 finished in the low 30s, which doesn't go well in the points standings. I'll have to wait for the results to come in to see. And, the Pens managed a win against Buffalo so all in all it was a pretty good weekend. I didn't get to install the light in the nursery like I wanted to, but that will come with time. I mean, I have a ton of time left. Counting down to the current due date, I have a whole 133 days. That's a lifetime, right?

Single-Handedly I Tell You

So, I was at half-price books recently. What, I'm allowed. Anyway, I had methodically gone through the sections and heard a couple of people comment on my "list" that I carry. One of them actually commented to me, which is nice. I usually just hear it second hand. "Look at that guy shuffling papers." Anyway, I'm checking out. The counters at half-price are structured in such a way that they have three sides of a square to check out customers. Frequently, they only use one side, but occasionally there are two open. So, across the counter from me are two women, probably late 30s, early 40s. They are thrilled with the novelty of buying books at a half-price. The second one has her total come up to around $25 and remarks to her friend that in a regular bookstore you would have to pay $25 for just this book and holds one up. Turns out, it's some selection from Oprah's book club. I didn't see which one and as far as I'm concerned it doesn't matter. So, the first woman asks if she's heard anything about the book itself. The second woman actually verbalizes...out loud...in public, the following sentence. "I have no idea, but if Oprah recommends it, then I'll read it." The girl that was ringing up my books almost snapped her neck, her head spun around so fast. (She was, in my opinion, in the end stages of a goth look...kind of grungy, nose-ring, colored hair, but realizing that she was getting a little older) I'm just appalled and beginning to seethe. The two women continue their purchase, take their bags and head for the door. As the door is closing, Terri walks up to me. I turn to her and say, "See, I told you. I actually heard one of those women say out loud, 'If Oprah recommends it, then I'll read it.' I told you that woman is single-handedly destroying literature." The counter girl almost chokes trying not to laugh out loud. Then she turns to me and says, "I'm sorry, can I get a high-five for that? I'm not allowed to say things like that here, but since you did I'm going to agree." So, I exchanged high-fives with the counter girl with Terri rolling her eyes that not only is someone in agreement, but they're willing to admit it. She figures that's all I need and know she's going to have to listen to my anti-Oprah rant for the next several hours. Luckily, I was appeased by the high-five and the eventual thought of relating the story here.
Oh, and because I let it linger a bit too long, the final tally on the books contained just in the loft/library (that doesn't count books housed in the bedrooms, living room, dining room, or kitchen) is 3,573. So, that would make Susie the closest.

It's Official...I'm Screwed

Well, go ahead and laugh, everyone else has. And, while you're doing that, you can meet my daughter (name pending...I'm sure that will cause several more posts in and of itself.)
Tonight, instead of relaxing and watching the Pens beat the Devils, I have to clean out 1/2 of the loft so that someone can have her scrapbooking area available to her. This may be the first time in 15 1/2 years that I've lost a bet to my wife. I think the only one truly happy by all of this is Gage who adamantly kept insisting that he wanted a little sister. We're going to videotape that for later review. Like when she breaks his favorite toy, or starts dating his best friend.

Library Pictures

With A Book Book Here And A Book Book There

Since I was pulling the kids pictures off my new toy I decided to snap a few of the bookshelves that I kept promising. So, following are the pictures. Here are the guesses thus far.
Randy - approx 1,350
Matt - 1,500
Elizabeth - 2,012
Susie - 3,000

So, based on the pictures you can either increase or decrease your vote. Keep in mind that these are only the books in the library. This doesn't count books in the living room, kitchen, dining room, Gage's room, or the bedroom. I haven't factored those into the count. And, if you want to be totally exact, add 2 to whatever number you decide upon to accomodate for the books Tom bought me for Christmas that I haven't shelved yet.

Movie Time

One Sock On, One Sock Off

Katie Being An Excellent Big Sister

Gage Practicing To Be A Big Brother

With An Ankle Sprain Here And An Ankle Sprain There...

Let's see, Wednesday night into Thursday there was no sleep to be had. Too much work to be done. So, work on Thursday didn't let up at all and it spilled over into Thursday night as well. By the time Friday morning rolled around, I was working on about 7 or 8 hours of sleep between three days. Finally at around 5:50ish on Friday we put the whitewash on the fence and gave up the ghost. I wanted to go straight home to watch the Pens game, but I needed to run a few quick errands. It was 1-0 Tampa Bay when I went into the store. When I came back out, I couldn't get a score because all people were talking about was the fact that Crosby hadn't returned to the ice. That's when the alarm bells started going off in my head. Crosby + Not on ice = bad stuff. Turns out Mr. Crosby, much like Susie had an ankle sprain. Now Susie didn't pick hers up by crashing into the boards during a hockey game, but I'll be it hurts just as much. So, now two games without him, they are a plus 3 points, but it's gonna be a long haul if he's out for too long. Atlanta is quite upset as well. Sidney is not going to be able to play in the All-Star game. That can mean quite the revenue loss for them down there.
Anyway, Saturday rolled around and that enrolled us in babysitting duty. The Warners had relatives visiting and they were up for a dinner out and visiting the new glass exhibit at Phipps Conservatory. That left Terri and I (since Susie had the aforementioned ankle sprain) with 5 children under the age of 5 to babysit. Ok, technically one of those 5 is really under the age, since he/she is now -5 months old. So that one wasn't going to be too much trouble. Then we had Mary who is just a shade over 4 months old. Next came Andrew who just recently turned 2. Then Gage who will be 4 in a couple of months and finally Katie who just turned 4. Terri and I didn't think it would be too much trouble. Hang out, play for a little while, feed the kids some dinner, put Mary down for a nap, plunk the older kids in front of a movie, then get everyone ready for bed. Ah, well laid plans. Mary decided against the nap, opting instead for an alternating method of crying and eating. It's amazing to me how much you take for granted when a child can articulate their needs and wants. You forget little tell-tale signs of a small child's needs. So, it ended up being one of us with the three older children and the other with Mary. Finally, after 3 bottles and just about every song I had in my head (which is quite a few), I got her into a lulled sleep. The older children weren't really any trouble at all beyond the normal trials and tribulations of kids their age. "I don't want to eat my peas." "I want to finish the whole movie before bed." "I want to wait for mommy and daddy before sleeping." So, I'm fairly certain all involved slept well Saturday night. Except maybe Mary :-) Following are some pictures.

Ah, The Sunrise...Now Where Have I Seen That Before

Ok, yes, I shouldn't be taking a break. I still have more left to do, but with less than 2 hours before I have to be showered and in the car on my way to work in the office, I figured I didn't have time for another movie, so I'd add the ones I'd completed. After breaking the seal with Meet the Robinsons last night, I quickly went through, Pittsburgh with Jeff Goldblum and Ed Begley, Jr. With the exception of maybe (and that's a stretch) Jeff Goldblum, there's not one actual real person in this movie who comes off as even remotely normal. I'm not sure how Jeff talked everyone into this, but it wasn't the greatest. After that, I went for one of those movies that everyone assumes I saw, but I never got around to. Road House It was pretty much what I had expected, maybe even a little more violent. Then I put in Nacho Libre. I was most disappointed in this one. It seemed to me like a bad imitation of Napoleon Dynamite. Right down to the dorky mexican-lite sidekick. Then I just finished up Walk the Line. I certainly wasn't expecting anything from this movie. Being a big Johnny Cash fan there isn't really any way to even come close. I did think that Joaquin and Reese did a passable job. It's just very hard to buy anyone as Johnny who doesn't have that completely low voice full of gravel. Having not seen the movie or really paid much attention as to who was in it, I was surprised to see Robert Patrick as Johnny's daddy Ray. Not because it was bad casting, but because this has been playing on satellite recently and he also plays the father role and they are essentially the same character. Anyway, now I'm up to 5.

To The Light At The End Of The Tunnel, Please Don't Be A Train

Work should begin to lighten up at the end of this week so if I haven't been as responsive to emails, ims, etc. now you know why. I did want to make sure that I quickly got this post in to say that I finally (after 16 days) managed to see a new movie from start to finish. While I've been sitting here working on the computer, Gage has been watching Meet The Robinsons. It's a typically Disney animated movie. I did really like the surprise cameo. That made me laugh out loud. I don't have a full rating scale like Tom does, but I'd certainly watch this again if the opportunity presented itself.

He's A Pittsburgh What?

So, since I rarely eat lunch and don't feel the need to be tied to my desk for 9 straight hours, I usually go out walking around the local area on my "lunch" break. I go out with Mark and we make a loop that some people in the office swear has to be a mile and a half. We just walk and talk and occasionally shop. Our last stop prior to returning to the office is the GetGo in the area so that Mark can pick up his 44 oz afternoon drink. We know all the cashiers and they all know us. So, Mark is getting his drink and we're talking with the cashier and a huge Hummer pulls up to the gas pump. Out steps an enormous man. He hobbles into the store and he and the cashier also seem to know each other. She asks him about his knee surgery and he explains that he'll be rehabbing in Arizona starting on Monday because they're the best in the business and he'll be ready for next season. At this point, because I'm not a complete idiot, I've gotten the idea based on money, size, and conversation that this man is a Pittsburgh Steeler. However, you could have given me 15 or so guesses and I still probably would not have realized that I had just met and spoke with Max Starks. In fact, even though I had heard the name, I still wouldn't have been able to pull his name out of a hat. Conversely, years ago when I was pulling time at a local fast-food eatery, I recognized Bryan Trottier instantly as soon as he walked through the door and have the autograph to prove it.
Tomorrow night is our company's holiday party from 2007. So, in the midst of a long week, instead of decompressing after work tomorrow, I'll be headed to socialize with everyone. Not that that's a bad thing, there will be an open bar and good food, but I've noticed recently that I've gotten a lot more selfish with how my time is spent. I want time for me, my family, my extended family, and my friends. Beyond that, I'm careful about what I do and where I go. Maybe it has something to do with the impending new addition, maybe I just want to have 10 minutes at home to get settled in and have visitors. Who knows?

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.