Almost wrapped up the first significant chunk of time on the new gig, I can find everything and am starting to remember names and I don't think I've pissed anybody off that I'm aware of. So, so far everything is good. I got a handle on things somewhat that I can open my mouth without sounding too stupid. At least not anymore so than usual.

The previous employer who will no longer be named decided they need one more screwing of me to complete the set. They had it arranged that you get all your benefit time right up front. It does permit you to map things out and carry stuff over from year to year. My younger sister got married a month ago and I had blocked the time off. You get the time out but you "earn" it with each pay period. In addition to getting my new job check, I had one day's pay remaining from the evil overlords of yore. They saw fit out of the 8 hours of salary on the check, to take back six of them, since I left with a little more than two months to go. I know it's playing by the rules, but it frosts me a little to see them be so tight when I had more than 100 hours of sick time left that I hadn't gotten too.

It's just a nice reminder that there are always better possibilities. Part of me wants to tease my sister that her wedded bliss went 94 dollars over budget, so there goes the present. I shouldn't, but I probably will. Never too old to be that kind of jerk.

Elsewhere, Halloween night was a good time. I took part in a Wiccan changing of the season ceremony with respectful silence. It was interesting to see a whole different tradition, which gave way to a really nice houseparty. The fathers present divved up the responsibilities getting the trick or treaters out. We got a great neighborhood, but I wasn't inclined to turn the young folk really loose. I got the 7th and 8th grade girls and we cruised up and down Ashland and Norwood. ((e:drew) and (e:Janelle) , my daughter was the one in the witch hat. It cracked me up that she chastised me for having friends on Lexington that she knew nothing about). They did pretty well, loot-wise, tried to tell them that we really should have hit the other side of Lexington to truly make out, but what are ya going to do.

Randomly speaking of course,

I got in trouble on the new job the other day, but skillful devil that I am, I weaseled my way out it, by being right. Score one for the "new guy."

I'm full for the election campaign locally and nationally. Locally I think there should be special places in hell for our county executive candidates. Neither has said anything what they are going to if they get the job. I just returned from a meeting that demonstrated how pious some of the departments can be and neither Keane or Collins has given me a reason to consider them. Bad enough the two of them made me think of reassessing Jimmy Griffin. Bastards!

Nationally, I'm full for the presidential goofs as well. Campaign hasn't really started, but given the hype and logjam of caucuses and primaries, the whole thing is done by Valentine's Day. We'll have annointed candidates, then another 9 months of people talking out their ass to get elected. Given that commentators today are talking about Obama making a last stand to chase Hillary with tonight's debate, I'm more than full for empty promises. I want people to tell me things that don't mean anything, I'll head to the Pink after midnight.

Between the Bills, my sister's wedding, the transition from Time Warner to the Zoo, I had been without a day off in about 3 weeks, I finally got Sunday off and spent that celebrating my Dad's belated birthday. If I was looking a little droopy eyed on Saturday, it was only partly due to beer consumption.

Great to see everybody as always. My costume was fictional. I worked till about 9:30 at a Zoo event, but it was worth it to get my butt to the 24. Great costumes and skeery creativity, with props to (e:carolinian) to putting his own special payoff on his costume. (e:Imk2) 's was a vision and I mean that in a good way.

Don't care about the Bills quarterback controversy. If all goes well here, they are getting my resignation after the Ice Bowl. Decided that the other day, now that this is seemingly off to a good start, I think I can scale back to one gig, but I do want to get that free hockey game in, especially given the scope of it.

Apparently, we're not cranking them out quick enough here

Distracted drivers are one of my biggest pet peeves. If you are on the road, pay attention dammit. Hell, if you are in a car at all pay attention. Coming out of my apartment building, there is a long driveway that spills out onto Delaware Ave. This morning, I drove to the end of it and stopped, waiting the space that you can cruise onto Delaware. When this Lexus IN THE FUCKING DRIVEWAY!?!?! decides to back up without looking and side swipes us. I say us because my kids have been with me this week and two off them were in the car.

That ups my inner crazy level more. The impact wasn't that big a deal. On my car, you really can't tell anything was wrong, but it was enough to wake you up. She manages to trap me in my door with the back half of her car on Delaware. I crawl out of my passenger side and direct her to just pull forward without adjusting the steering wheel so the two vehicles were free. We were able to both inspect and it was largely much ado over nothing. She was classy enough to apologize to my kids, promising to look, etc.

We exchanged info, but I can't really find anything wrong that I can't fix with a paintbrush (and a small one at that). Kids have a helluva story to start the day at school. I guess this journal is one of the few I've written to get it out of my head so I can be productive today. I drove to work and everything seems fine.

After getting a look at my kids faces and the lack of anything substantive on the car, I'm letting it go. But Holy Shit am I awake now.

One of the tremendous upsides of my new location is literally having Delaware Park out the back door. A handful of colleagues and I went out to do a lap around the ring road at lunchtime. About a third of the way around, we saw a guy with a bunch of pitbull puppies playing off to the side of the road. A dad and his daughter (I presume) stopped their walk to see the dogs, so the five of us did too. Dogs are happy and bounding around and it was a nice few minutes. Never dawned on any of us that the dude wasn't taking his pups out for a romp, but was looking the peddle each puppy for profit and turns out is wanted by the cops.

Talk about letting your guard down.

Cuteness can make you stupid.

A man was sick and tired of going to work every day while his
wife stayed home.

He wanted her to see what he went through so he prayed:

"Dear Lord: I go to work every day and put in 8 hours while my
wife merely stays at home. I want her to know what I go through, so
please allow her body to switch with mine for a day. Amen."

God, in his infinite wisdom, granted the man's wish.

The next morning, sure enough, the man awoke as a woman. -

He arose, cooked breakfast for his mate, awakened the kids,
set out their school clothes, fed them breakfast, packed their lunches, drove them to school, came home and picked up the dry cleaning, took it to the cleaners and stopped at the bank to make a deposit, went grocery shopping, then drove home to put away the
groceries, paid the bills and balanced the check book.

He cleaned the cat's litter box and bathed the dog.

Then it was already 1P.M. and he hurried to make the beds,

do the laundry, vacuum, dust, and sweep and

Mop the kitchen floor.

Ran to the school to pick up the kids and

got into an argument with them on the way home.

Set out milk and cookies and

got the kids organized to do their homework,

then set up the ironing board and

watched TV while he did the ironing.

At 4:30 he began peeling potatoes and

washing vegetables for salad,

breaded the pork chops and

snapped fresh beans for supper.

After supper, he cleaned the kitchen,

ran the dishwasher,

folded laundry,

bathed the kids, and put them to bed.

At 9 P.M. he was exhausted and, though his daily chores weren't
finished,

he went to bed where he was expected to make love, which he
managed to get through without complaint.

The next morning, he awoke and immediately knelt by the bed and
said:

-"Lord, I don't know what I was thinking. I was so wrong to envy
my

wife's being able to stay home all day. Please, oh! oh! please,
let us

trade back."

The Lord, in his infinite wisdom, replied:

"My son, I feel you have learned your lesson and I will be
happy to change things back to the way they were. You'll just have to
wait nine months though. You got pregnant last night."

Okay, it's another work related post, but it's my first week so deal. We were setting up for this kid friendly Halloween event last night and I was laughing about the whole thing. We were setting up trick or treat stations throughout the zoo under the watchful eye of the animals. They do pay attention when something weird is going on.

Along one of the back walk ways a coworker and myself built this little station right next to the black manaque monkeys, five of which came right to the window so see what was up. The Serval two doors down did the same thing. We had a couple of pallets of donated cookies that went into the roon under the watchful eye of one of the Buffalos, who was none too pleased when a pallet slipped off the forklift. It's a little creepy and kind of cool at the same time. There are three windows in the gorilla house and last night, the gorillas were doing all the looking, like they were inspecting.

I didn't get nervous until I had to set up a larger exhibit in the reptile house where we were going to crank out cider and donuts for revelers. To get from where the snacks were to the party locale, I had to go through one of those off limits areas. The one I went through was were some of the off limited animals were hanging. A Snow leopard took careful note when I came schlepting through with cups and whatnot. When myself and a colleague made another pass through, this time with 15 dozen donuts, I swear he shot me a look that said "C'mon man, help a four legged brother out and toss me a few..."

Or maybe not, but this is shaping up to be cool place to work. Downside is I have to work next saturday night till about 9 so if I can make it to the 24 for the party, my costume will probably a decent 43 year old who had to work that day.

My new job does have some interesting side effects. I was reminded of an incident from college. I was taking a History final in a small class of about 15. Only noise was pens scribbling in blue books until this friend of mine, a really attractive woman, got a attack of hunger pains. You know the kind. Suddenly your stomach is speaking yiddish and doing it loudly: "Oyyyoyy Oyyoyy." The previous quiet in the room only magnified the hilarity. She was a great sport. Anyway, a similar thing happened today. It was one of my first staff meetings and one of the sea lions let loose with a speech heard across the zoo. Lil Devil timed it just right to let the air out of what my boss's spring fund raiser plans.

You'd think the vets would be used to it, kind of like living near train tracks, but some things just are funny.

It is kind of cool to go down the office stairs and turn right to the Lions window, two of which were right there filling up the window. This is a recommendation that if you are zoo inclined, off days can be interesting. Animals everywhere were just chilling. The other entrance to get to my office isn't too far away from the gorillas all of whom were just hanging out doing their monkey business.

It's like performers practicing when the spotlights are off.

Still settling into my new professional digs, I think it's going to work okay. I like the fact that an issue came up and my boss made the effort to include me in the consensus being taken. Her boss didn't so it was nice to see a polite message sent. She immediately followed that up with a "Now that Michael is here,...." email which was nice. It's an interesting time to be joining in. The year is essentially over and there is much plotting to do but that can't start until the calendar is set. While we get past the Halloween promotion, I've been doing a lot of research. It's interesting to see how things work and how they've been done previously, it's been decidely low key.

Part of me wants to run around like the little brother on The Christmas Story proclaiming what is mine, but that will come in time. Right now, I'm slowing filling in a void that has been empty for two months. So, it's that new guy period of adjustment for all parties, which has always driven me crazy when I've started somewhere, but it will pass. Made me feel good that two folks sought me out for a lunch time walk around the park ring road. I think that alone qualifies it for the coolest park yard of any employer I may have had previously.

So far, so good.

A souvenir from my sister's wedding at the Garrison Spa




I was going to make it a user pic, but cropped like that it looks like it I'm running for something. But a good suit photo for fans of such things.The newlyweds must have sold their souls at some point, given how autumnal the weather suddenly became. They got a sunny day around 85, nice clouds as highlights for the mountains for backdrops of pictures. Ceremony was good and original (as well as short). The reception, well, wedding receptions are about as much fun as a pre-scripted party can be. The food was eclectic, reflecting the ethic groups of the happy couple. Might be the only time Guinness and Pierogi intentionally debuted near each other. I had never been to that part of the state. My kids and I packed into a rented Camry the day before and barrelled down the highway till we saw signs for NYC within 50 miles before be routed up I84 to where we were camped in Fishkill, NY.

The Rehearsal Dinner was in the Riverview Restaurant in Cold Spring where I swear the wait staff was made up of low talkers (remember that Seinfeld episode?). I thought I was going deaf, turned out the waiter was a mumbler. Only time I ever ordered anything by asking for the last thing he said. Fortunately, the scallops were good.

My folks threw a rather bloated party for relatives and friends at what I swear was TGIFridays with a railroad theme. It got too big and I think they realize that. It wasn't that it wasn't fun. The restaurant just did a craptastic job of seating a large party. As a result, talking to the people I knew and the all too infrequently seen relatives was a chore. The latter kind of stunk because I was trying to introduce my kids to a few great aunt and uncles that they previously never met or just flat out didn't remember.

Made it back here in six hours and rested up for the previously journaled experience of Monday Night Football.

Had to laugh when in an informal meeting today, we hit one of those moments where the conversation stopped. A few moments of quiet were then punctuated with a decisive moan from a sea lion having a bad day.

Cable could never top that.

Completed my TW term yesterday. My lovely associated produced a really good rum soaked pound cake for the occasion that we snacked on all afternoon. The leftovers and a bottle of locally produced Merlot came home with me. The leftovers disappeared last night and I'm working on the wine right now and it is quite good (www.springlakewinery.com). The trials of the week left me whipped. The kids are all farmed out on various overnights. Tried to gather myself to see "Across the Universe" at the Amherst but it ain't gonna happen. Spent the better part of the afternoon with number one son at my new and improved employer meandering around in the gale force winds. I did snag a couple of tiger wristbands so you're all set (e:Ladycroft). I'll get one in the mail in the next few days.

Did my final TW credits on Friday. Got the unexpected but thoroughly enjoyable visit from (e:uncutsaniflush) and (e:lettuce) . Next guy I waited on mentioned that he thought we all might be drinking buddies. Little did he know. Cleaned out my desk and packed an box for my next work stop. Got to love the monday commute 5 minutes! The toughest part will be making a left onto Delaware at 8AM. Gonna be fun. My office hasn't had DVRs for awhile and I like how I solved that problem, don't need no steenking DVRs anymore. Reboot your modems kids, cuz I can't anymore.

A brief bid of tribute. My Dad turns a very youthful 71 tomorrow. Since he had a prime role in last weekend's wedding, the folks are taking the weekend off. We're gonna party at some point. For a present, I wrangled suite seats for a Bills game in November. I know, a Bills Game, but to see it from the heated, fully stocked suite is a nice treat. He's a Notre Dame Grad so I had to taunt him a little with the backpage from ESPN the magazine. For the unitiated, just outside the one end of the Notre Dame stadium is the campus library. On the side facing the stadium is a mural of Jesus in one of his usual poses. With outstetched arms, the picture has been dubbed "Touchdown Jesus." Given that Notre Dame is really bad this season, a wag at ESPN altered it to be "Fourth Down Jesus." It seemed to a be a nice, smartypants card for the original nice smarty pants.

Happy Birthday, Dad