My little dysfunctional family got together yesterday for brunch to celebrate my ex's turning 44. It was really great. I got to bond a little with my nephew and a good time was had by all. All hail the Ambrosia omelet, didn't need to eat for the rest of the day.

Post martial arts class, number one son and I grabbed his sisters and headed over to the zoo. (e:theecarey) 's post reminded me of it. And I love the area's tourist attractions when the tourists aren't here. I did learn that I'm no animal photog.





Who knew Polar Bears were that stealthy?

I being me had to catch a shot of my three favorite critters


It was a hoot, kind of like having a private showing at the place.

In other news, I got a groovy new phone that can mobile post and works great, except the lens in the camera is fucked up. Everything is upside down in the taken images so I'm off to the Sprint store to plead my case.

Still nothing new on the cable marketing front except said marketing director made a point of coming to see me to say she couldn't do anything for another two weeks. I appreciate that and am trying not to read anything into it. Although, I do wish they'd quit dangling the carrot in front of me and let me have a bite already. Didn't get much of a chance to think about it. We were very shorthanded so I got pressed into customer service on Friday, which on a first friday of the month in the city, you can imagine how much fun that was. 137 customers later, I found I had the night off from everything. I had time and money, but without the giddyap to get off the couch. A few beers and the Sabres game -- thankfully they won -- were the recipe for renewal.

I did get to a little of the Celtic Sessions at Nietzche's yesterday, didn't see anybody I knew, but it was good to get out for a little while, and the two pints put me in a good mood for the rest of the evening.

Happy Sunday ya'all, see ya round the hood maybe..........

My apartment isn't bad, but the landlord took almost a year to repair water damage in my living room and the sun porch was unuseable during the entirety of last summer. I get a renewal notice that included another increase, including a raise for the parking garage. He must have a waiting list for that. There can't be an increase in expense there as the same two 15 watt bulbs illuminate it as when I moved in. If I had enough to do first and last months somewhere, I'd give some thought to maybe seeking other options, but I'm probably going to sign back up for another year.....sigh.

So, Saturday the ex headed to Toronto for a show she wanted to see. Number one Son was going to crash with my ailing self once more, but the girls were going to hold the fort at the house. I gave the speech about nobody in, nobody out, call me when your grandma drops you at home, you need anything call me, etc.

The mom and I catch up sunday.

She: Did you know she spent the night at XXXX?

Me: Wha???

To our mutual eternal credit, we didn't beat the beejzeeus out of her right there and her younger sister really didn't need to have her there, but the stepping out sans any kind of adult acknowledgement has her grounded from any non parental sanctioned/involved activity for the foreseable future. I forgot leaving that leaving a voice mail for your Mom saying you were leaving makes it okay to overlook not having permission. Nevermind that Mom is an another friggin country while the figurehead of a father is just up the street. What a Fool I be? I couldn't help but smirk to myself that when darling daughter approached her mother and me on sunday morning with two friends. We didn't say anything for second till I looked at her wingmen (wingwomen?) and evenly yet with a bit of sinister tone dripping from my voice, commanded "leave now." The two accomplices nearly fell out of their Uggs exiting stage right.

All that parenting has me jonesing for some recreational adult company. I'm heading (e:Dragonlady7) 's note about the celtic themed happy hour at Nietzche's on Saturday and am trying to break the monotony of the work week a little. I started with my first students teaching computer programs (the new system application) at work today and only insomnia keeps me up now.

Sleep has been a little elusive over the past few days. I chalk it up to not being quite right. I dream pretty good, but the mental remote control has been hitting all the bad channels if you know what I mean (and I think you do).

If you missed Countdown tonight, it's worth a look at MSNBC.com to watch Keith Olbermann have at Secretary Rice. Quite hilarious

Happy Monday, ya'all. one down...........

I think the Larkin Building or Wegman's Chicken Parmegian tried to do me in. I ate the Wegman thursday night for dinner and prepped it just like you should. Felt like not wanting to go to work on Friday morning but that is no change so I went. I'm sitting in class not doing great on Friday morning. It ended so I had to head back to work. I stopped at the cafeteria at the Larkin Building to grab a bit and I think it bit me. The more I tried to get something done at the office, the more it seemed like I was moving underwater.

Came home and sat down for a moment and next thing I knew an hour passed by. Went and got the kids and sure enough, I had a fever. Good times. Basically sat and watched tv with them from a distance. Sucker broke saturday morning, but man, that sort of sucked. At 43, I don't think I'm too old for much, but that left me feeling like somebody younger beat me up. Spent saturday lazily hanging out with number 1 son, videogaming, computing, watching the Sabres game which seems to have given me my sea legs back, but oy (and no, I didn't hurl) vey.

Strange capper to a wholly unremarkable week.

There was that report on the news about the doofus who nearly fell into Niagara Falls trying to retrieve his cell phone. I wandered up to see the level of stupidity for myself today. If you go out to Goat Island for optimal Falls viewing, you can traipse to the upper viewing area. Most things are closed and you are blocked by snow and gates from going to the lower area. This doesn't stop chuckleheads from standing atop the snow and posing for photographs, stupidly not realizing that with one false step they are in for a real view, if you know what I mean (and I think you do).

Since this is offseason, a lot is unspoiled, just a few paths created by passing footprints. It seemed like a good place to go play with the new camera.





Can you imagine having that waterslide out your hotel room?

I've been in a "train the trainer" kind of session all week at work. We've been learning a new operational system for Time Warner's computers. Basically, it will hold all customer data in new graphic use surroundings, and will also ease the introduction of digital phone. I know that sounds exciting. I'll pause for a moment while you digest that information. Okay, having mopped the sarcasm, I'll continue.

There are various folks from all departments taking part in this riveting exercise. To my immediate right, is the new marketing manager. After 4 fun-filled days of this, she started chatting me up about "I understand you've done some web site work in the past." My internal lightbulb is glowing with nova brightness by the time she gets this sentence out. She goes on to explain that she could use some backup on the websites since her current coordinator (the doofus who supplanted me) has no abilities in this area. I kept it quick and casually dropped that I knew the content management software pretty well, I did a profit making page from literally scratch as well as applied for the coordinator opening that she has posted. "Awesome, that's cool" was the reply. Since we had to get to work, I left it at that.

Friday morning, I walked into class with a screen capture that I photoshopped off one of the sites I did for adelphia. It can't compare to this site since it was a Frontpage job, but it made money without spending anything. Those kinds of results go far in corporate circles. Again, without making a big production, I handed one to her before our class started. "Obviously, we can't really talk about this here, but if you are interested in having a conversation down the road, I thought this might let you know a little more about what I can do," said our hero, casually handing over the one sheet as he headed for coffee.

She replied, "That's great, can I keep this?" I told her sure and that if there was anything else I could supply her with, let me know.

So, here's hoping there is some there there. Be nice to use that part of my brain before I get too much older.

In other news, the gift card I wrote about turned into an butt kicking laptop from toshiba. I can be one of those pretentious bastards at Spot to take up a label with lots of grafts and charts, only to play Halo while sipping coco mocos. I don't this counts as a mobile post since I'm in my overstuffed chair in the living room, but what the hey.

I'm getting tired of driving in the miniwhite outs, been over a week now and it's losing it's charms. I think it was Tuesday I was picking a rut to stay into on the way to work traveling down the Kensington. THat road doesn't scare me much by Tuesday was one of those times. I got home on Wednesday after a jocularity laden time on the highway only to see the snow plows blocked the driveway. I have a small car and it struggled to make it up the driveway. I had visions of it getting stuck without any wheels touching the ground. It's a little embarrassing to get pity looks from other cars on Delaware while you try to make the ascent to the dry pavement. I did merit applause from the folks at the bus stop by Delaware and Utica.

The little Mitsubishi that could.....

My car was so grey with road salt that I took it for a bath last night. The Delta Sonic on Delaware didn't have much of a line, so I slid right in. Didn't pay much attention but the "Superkiss" took out a sticker I had on my rear window that looked like a hockey puck was about to break the glass. That wasn't a great loss, but the cleaning knocked my estrip sticker off the back of the car and into superkiss oblivion. Guess I know now the limitations of the magnet on the back of the sticker. Least, the car is its more normal red for the moment.

I'm taking a class this week to learn a new billing program that Time Warner will be using, It's a nice breather from the usual routine, different building and all. Twas a little weird to drive home in the midst of the storm hysteria. The Wegmans lot on Walden was jammed. I needed some stuff and held off until I got back to our Wegmans where it was flooded with shoppers who assume the sky is falling. My class teacher is from Atlanta so I can't help but wonder if he is in for a show or if all the weatherforecasters are just panicking for the sake of viewers. During one of his drier parts of his presentation, I spent my gift card online for a proper laptop -- should be cool.

Thanks again for the estrip birthday wishes, the hullabaloo came to end finally on Sunday when the kids and I trekked out to the parents house for much reverlry (okay, dinner and cake), but it felt good to be a little spoiled. Kids and their mom took me to breakfast at Betty's on Saturday. Nothing like a 5 day Mikestock to pick you up.

One little footnote, (e:dragonlady) rocked the rink saturday night. Tje rollerderby was a hoot, with (e:zobar) looking on like the proud dad. Next match whenever it is should be a (e:strip) field trip, chicks and skates and beer and crashes! That was truly entertainment.

As soon as I finish reading the directions, I can mobile post from my new camera. I'm 30 for the 13th time, getting good at it.

Fuck, I'm getting up there. Good thing I still got the looks (Shaddup!)

For awhile now, I've been lusting after Samsung's version of the Razor phone. I've had Samsung phones for awhile and have been pretty happy with them as phones. Being a little crumudgeonly (shaddup) I been pleased with how they do has phones. Sprint being high performing jerks won't give any deals to any existing customers. What's a boy to do but to turn to ebay, where I've purchased previous phones. I got a good price on the "razor" and sent off a money order. Today I was checking on a couple of other things in "My Ebay" and noticed that my phone vendor is no longer registered as a user. Serves me right.

Hope he gets mugged taking my mo to the bank.

In other news, I was doing a little research at work today and thought I'd pass along a little bon mot to any of you folks who get your tv/internet from Time Warner. The Customer I was talking about had a "Silver Advantage" pak. This was set up under Adelphia. Whenever anybody changes anything, we're supposed to get them into Time Warner pricing. I discovered that if you put the Silver Advantage customer into Time Warner pricing, the customer doesn't lost any channels, the internet costs go down and the tv goes down about $9.00-$10.00 a month. Not a big amount, but hell, that's a decent bottle of wine (A much better way to spend money). If you got Silver or Bronze from Adelphia, shoot me a post-it or sumthin.

I did get the wine I wrote about in a previous post, 12 bottles of Mcwilliams Australian vino. For free, it's pretty damn good. I got the wooden case (nice touch) out to the car. I popped open a saval blanc open for this post and it's quite tasty. Being a good guy, I gave 3 bottle to the ex and there is still a line to get into my excuse for a wine rack. That is never a bad thing.

On the subject of booze however, my boss came up to me as I was leaving and asked if I could help her out. Turned out there a guy dead to the world in our lobby. Dude had two empty bottles of St. Ives at his feet. No telling how long he had been there. She tried talking to him and you could hear his eyes roll as he went right back to sleep. Cops from next door came and took him to some place to sleep it off. By this time, the cleaning crew arrived. I couldn't help but laugh a little as the crew chief told one of his people to "be sure and clean that chair reaaaal good."

Got an early birthday present today as well. Bagged a $1000 gift card to Circuit City. I'm thinking 43 will be my HD birthday! Wrinkles be damned. The xbox 360 will look so much nicer with the compatible HD set. Good times.

Stay warm ya'all

69 confession questions

1. The phone rings. Who do you want it to be?
Someone calling me for work.

2. When shopping at the grocery store, do you return your cart?
all of the time. I used to do cart retrieval when I worked at Bells Markets. I feel their pain.

3. In a social setting, are you more of a talker or a listener?
listener.

4. Do you take compliments well?
like a pro

5. Do you play Sudoku?
Don't know how

6. If abandoned alone in the wilderness, would you survive?
lord no, I'd get eaten by a bear or something on the first day

8. Did you ever go to camp as a kid?
Boy scout camp, .

9. What was your favorite game as a kid?
Life. I think it the spinner that set it apart

10. If a sexy person was pursuing you, but you knew he/she was married, would you?
no.

12. Could you date someone with different religious beliefs than you?
I have, and no big whoop.

13. Do you like to pursue or be pursued?
Depends on the "Hunt"

14. Use three words to describe yourself?
interesting, intelligent, incisive

15. Do any songs make you cry?
Real World by Bruce Springsteen

16. Are you continuing your education?
always.

17. Do you know how to shoot a gun?
Yes

18. If your house was on fire, what would be the first thing you grabbed?
My brother's old toy chimes

19. How often do you read books?
Constantly, night stand is top heavy

20. Do you think more about the past, present or future?
the present

21. What is your favorite children's book?
"Goodnight Opus" by Berke Breathed

22. What color are your eyes?
Blue (mostly)

23. How tall are you?
6"3

24. Where is your dream house located?
Standlin Point, Ontario.

25. Best vacay ever?
NYC '89

26. Coolest picture?
of me?? still lookin

27. Have you ever taken pictures in a photo booth
Yes, every time it's actually working at Frizzy's.

28. When was the last time you were at Olive Garden?
Wow, I can't even answer that...early 2006?

29. How about the movies?
The Departed, a few weeks ago at the Market Arcade

30. Where was the furthest place you traveled today?
Home to my son's gym -- interesting trip today

32. Do you like mustard?
Yes

33. Do you prefer to sleep or eat?
sleep...

34. Do you look like your mom or dad?
Put Mom's face on Dad's skull

35. How long does it take you in the shower?
8 minutes. Exactly.

36. Can you do a split?
Not without making a decidely girlish noise

37. What movie do you want to see right now?
Not sure. On Demand is working better than the theater at the moment

39. What did you do for New Year's?
Beheld the wonder that is a party at PMT's

40. Do you think The Grudge was scary?
No

41. Do you laugh a lot?
All the time. My laugh is one of my favorite parts of me.

42. Do you own a camera phone?
No, I did, but it died with my last plant

44. Was your mom a cheerleader?
No

45. What's the last letter of your middle name?
N

46. how many hours of sleep do you get a night?
5ish...wish it was 8ish

47. Do you watch MTV?
I like the MTV HD channel, they show videos

48. Do you like care bears?
No

49. What do you buy at the movies?
Popcorn at the Market Arcade. Regal, not so sure

50. Do you know how to play poker?
yes I do.

51. Do you wear your seatbelt?
All the time, except in the backseat.

52. What do you wear to sleep?
whatever I fall asleep wearing.

53. Anything big ever happen in your hometown?
The Joan Diver stuff was about a mile from my folks house

54. How many meals do you eat a day?
4

55. Is your tongue pierced?
no

56. Do you always read MySpace bulletins?
no

57. Most visited webpage?
estrip.org

58. Do you like funny or serious people better?
a little of both

59. Ever been to L.A.?
I have. It's a disappointment. San Diego was so much nicer

60. Did you eat a cookie today?
Yes, and now I want more

61. Do you use cuss words in other languages?
The Gaelic ones

62. Do you steal or pay for your music downloads?
I'm a good boy these days

63. Do you hate chocolate?
I prefer dark chocolate. Nothing can touch a dark chocolate areo bar.

64. What do you and your parents fight about the most?
They're pretty quiet these days

65. Are you a gullible person?
I guess, maybe, I dunno. What do you think

66. Do you need a boyfriend/girlfriend to be happy?
No, but a crush would be nice. been awhile

67. If you could have any job (assuming you have the skills) what would it be?
Master brewer

68. Are you easy to get along with?
absolutely.

69. What is your favorite time of day?
5:31 pm. I can be me then