It's surprising what can make you raw, or then again maybe not. Whenever the ex's job takes her out of town or vice versa, the other steps up and runs the child show solo for the duration. Been doing it long enough that I really don't think about it.

The young man is bunking on my couch, while the girls are holding court at the house. They get a little taste of responsibility and independence, but close enough I can smell the smoke. The kids and I fall into a pretty great flow and as everytime their mom goes away, she returns to see all three still alive, fed, etc, so I think I'm doing pretty good.

We're in day 2 of a 3 day stint. My mother in law calls and wonders "What are they doing for dinner?", meaning the girls. Now, she is one of the most giving, good hearted souls that I know, but the way she managed to ask the question felt like somebody starting pouring bourbon in an open wound on me.

I sat there in my car outside number one son's guitar lesson and just ate that feeling of upset. I know she didn't mean anything but the way it sounded was nausea inducing, like I was less of a parent because I don't reside at the house anymore or that my parenting involvement is suspect since my ex is out of town. "Can he handle it without the former Mrs?' I sat there in a numbed stupor texting this to the lovely mother of my children who talked me back down. I don't know if it is a feeling of spinning my wheels a little bit at work or just remembering what it was like in the eye of the gossip hurricane at our church a few years ago or just being overtired in general. But I needed a moment.

She called, we chatted, and I felt better after initially feeling worse. I started to tell a tale and couldn't get to the end of it. What makes that silly is what provoked it was nothing by comparison to some of the sins that I've already strode through. I'm not sure if that is making any sense. I know my Mom-in-law wasn't out to upset, just to help, but sometimes something benign can start a whole sordid turn. I vented, I baked (cookies) and am better now.

Show's over, move along folks...

Didn't have to be anywhere yesterday, so I wasn't. The weather was so god awful, I didn't feel real guilty about it. Told the former Mrs. Mike that if the laundry facilities in the basement were free, church was going to have to wait. It did. I came, I saw, I laundered. It was good thing, got caught up on some the hard work that my DVR had been doing during the week.

With the local professional football team having me consider becoming a CFL fan with their epic badness, I appreciated the BBC showing a handful of episodes of "Top Gear," easily the most fun car show ever. Between laundry loads, I caught the pilot for "Eastwick" which shows a little promise. The people who used to make "Scrubs" are split between "Cougartown" and something with Patricia Heaton, which was so memorable I dove back into my book pile for save my intellect while the Bills continued to hurt my feelings.

Got two reminders about age this weekend. An attempt to go see Living Color was belayed by the fact that they were playing in a Toronto club and not starting till after 11. Both my potential traveling partner and I realized that neither one of us was 23 anymore. Neither one of us was really keen on tackling the Queen E at 3 in the morning either. Instead, I went with another friend to support her daughter at a bar on Chippewa. The bar's owners are depending on the bartenders to bring in the trade. There's a recipe for long term success (please note sarcasm). She did well, despite an owner giving her cues as to when to this or that. Dude, let the employees do the jobs you hired them for, there is plenty of time to run the bar into the ground. She has the right attitude, get some experience and bolt for better surroundings with time. The bar itself caters to the early drinker crowd, so I felt a little out of place, not nearly as much as the skeevy perv who sat at the bar all night, eyeing the bartenders, but a merry time was had. Made me long for a nice unpretentious old man bar, though.

got a twitter account and some of the followers make sense (including some of you nice folk), others I have no idea who the hell some of them are. That along with the fact that "Follow Friday" is all the rage and I don't know the point of that have left me a little bumfuzzled. If I'm to be collected, there better be something in it for me.

Maybe it was because summer was such a nonstarter, but it seems like comfort food season got here quicker than usual.

I think it is great Rio got the 2016 Olympics. It's good for it to move around as that is the true Olympic spirit. I'm a little confused at the amount of people who rooted for Chicago's failure simply because the President tried to help the cause (like leaders too). I understand, hell I respect, polite disagreement, but this sniveling resentment is a crappy lesson to exhibit. It's a crappy example to set and makes me think Maureen O'dowd had a point a few weeks ago in writing that there is a faction of the population that had just lost its collective shit about the current office holder. Lousy state of affairs.

Where my head is at the moment.

And so it goes.

It felt a little weird to be off from work today. It was a previous scheduled day off and my being in the office wouldn't have changed a thing from what occured, but it isn't often that you lose a colleague and it gets picked up by the AP.

I love my job, but I haven't been in it long enough to form any kind of special bond with the living collection other than I think I'm an accepted part of the fabric. I have a great appreciation and a tremendous amount of respect for those folks who work directly with the animals. It's a tough job under the best of circumstances and when an animal gets sick, these guys are rock stars.

Our friend Buki was a favorite with visitors and staff. She had a playful manner and a sense of fun that put everybody at ease. A case in point, I occasionally am pressed into service in a spokesperson role, which is no big deal, I'm fairly comfortable in that role. That is kind of ironic as school oral reports were always moment of fear. In any case, early last summer, I came down with Bell's Palsy. I've since beat it back, but for a time the right side of my face was frozen in a bit of scowl. That is kind of handy when you have teenage daughters, not so much when you are representing your institution.

Anywho, when the terrific public relations coordinator is out, I get the call. She was away for a live shot on one of the local morning shows. The day before my boss told me nobody could see anything from my affliction. While that was nice to hear, it didn't stop my worry. I'm irish, it's how I roll.

The butterflies only amplified when the reporter asked me to face to the right (my afflicted side). I knew my talking points and whatnot, but I was having a tough time concentrating on my answers thinking that I must have looked, I dunno, scary or something. Trying to remember myself, I think I sounded nervous the first time out despite the reporter's kind words. I should mention that Buki was sniffing around a little behind us while we were talking. I think mostly to see who had the jelly beans, an occasional treat. The initial segment finished and I felt a breeze behind me. I don't know if she sneezed, exhaled or just sighed at the silly visitors, but whatever it was, I like to think the old show business pro was telling me to chill.

So I did. The rest was easy



Thanks, friend :)

Actually, walking the bounds of the marina last night, when it was cold and whatnot -- when better to go? No lines.

Caught some interesting images



I can't decide if that cloud looks like the Milennium Falcon or Underdog.







My creativity was a little pushed as it was getting chilly out there, but something about the color of the sky made me wish to be a sailboat owner. The races were going off in the distance.

Looked nice.

Joe Wilson revealed himself to be a real twit. Yelling "You Lie" during the President's speech the other night was the second most childish thing to happen in the news this week. The first being the hullaballoo about the President talking to school kids. I have a hard time fathoming that, remembering by sent to classes to hear Nixon for pete's sake. The whole week makes me think there is some truth in Maureen O'dowd's column in yesterday's New York Times.

Not sure what to make of the whole Mickey Kearns vs. Bryon Brown dustup. I went to a function and Kearns did listen to one of my long held gripes that what is working in the city is largely in spite of City Hall. I came away certain of only that the Irish Times knows how to properly pour a pint. The whole scene reminded me of a scene in "The West Wing," where President Bartlett maintained that the one thing government can do well is collect money then put it back out in the community. First guy to have that attack of common sense can have my vote. I am a little bumfuzzled at our current leader who went confronted with a question, concern, etc, his first reaction is to disavow any knowledge of the incident. That just ultimately breeds suspicion and eventually even contempt. Either case, Kearns' suprisingly strong polling as made it an entertaining race. Thanks for that Carl.

I'm thinking good thoughts for an ailing friend.

A week of meetings, essential and otherwise has otherwise fried me. I've spent the first part of the morning with coffee and ironing. Tomorrow, I slept to better get my mojo working for Tuesday. Enjoy opening day, everybody as Tom Brady will force home some harsh realities on us Western New York Football fans tomorrow night.

Things have to be looking up. I have dibs on a Springsteen ticket

to be back homeward"

It's been a odd week. The Beatles "Golden Slumbers" medley has nestled itself in my head recently. I think that is largely a byproduct of the Rock Band release on Wednesday. I'm not rushing out to pick that up with Springsteen tickets going on sale shortly, but I have been enjoying the hype a little bit. VH1 Classic earns its keep in my eyes with actual music, full concerts and stuff like The Beatles: Anthology, a great documentary from the 90s. Fun seeing the surviving (at that time) three casually talk about all the stuff that happened to them so long ago.

Got a hard lesson in being careful what you say when you post something. After a very hard labor day at work, I made a joke on that social network that shant be named and a reporter made a story out of the exchange of notes. It pisses me off that I got played, when I've done that so much better. It was lazy journalism ruining my thursday and casting a pallor over Friday. I think I was mostly upset with myself for letting my guard down.

I already journaled about the Hill service on Monday, but it has been interesting to see the way the story made it around the world via various news feeds. Nice to see joy trumping the sadness in every respect except for the occasional forum knuckleheads.

But a few tenative dates are leading in the right direction. Age breeds baggage, kids. You tend to go a little slower. And I got access to 200 level Springsteen tickets, so, it's all good.

"Man, the dope is that there's still hope."

I've been thinking about Asa Hill a lot over the weekend. He and my son played together a few times. And living on Anderson for many a moon, his great family was often visible given the proximity to the Ujima Theater (a marvelous place, btw). I don't them personally very well, but enough to know they are good folk and to lose somebody so young, well, there aren't any right words.

I suppose the silver lining in all of this for me is the amount of people who left their cars and did everything they could to give that little boy a fighting chance. We live in a world where we don't treat each other very well, very often and to see people rally like that is heartening. But I fall back on young parents burying children. I'm sitting on the couch tonight, torn up a little that I missed the service for an exhausting day at work and projected that onto my son. As a result, I'm having a horrible day dream about that being a consequence which has resulted in me being a big teary mess.

The Grandfather said something about being joyful for the time he got. I completely appreciate and respect that sentiment, but I guess if number one son was taken from me, I'd be pissed and angry with whatever diety or other invisible man in the sky about that, gyped over what should have been. There are evil cantankerous, hate inspiring sons-of-bitches who have all the durability of Michael Meyers, yet kids who don't know hate meet this type of end so soon.

If somebody came up to me with some bromide about God's plan, my first thought is that there is a serious rewrite need. That's provided I didn't deck 'em for excessive clinche use.

Yeah, I guess it is hitting awfully close to home as a parent and somebody who's been through it before. I was 14 when my 11 year old brother passed away. He had some health issues that never gave him peace and I think my folks at least at the benefit of knowing what was coming. That doesn't make it easier to take and I can still remember the looks in their eyes when they broke the news to me. I can't tell you what dinner was like tonight, but stuff like that I can remember in fine detail. Love my folks, my dad remains my most trusted advisor as I stagger through my 40s, but that is one trait we don't need to share. I know that is a stretch, but you worry.

My lovely son is slowly coming to terms with dogs. For the longest time, he has scared of even the most harmless thing and it is slowly turning around. I like most dogs more than some people but sometimes not everybody remembered my guy's phobia. Last school year was his first, getting himself out to the bus. There are a couple of friends, but it was his first time on his own. After a couple weeks, I relaxed a little as he fell into a great routine. It helped that another great friend brought her kids and dog down to the same stop. I had this clear as we're watching vision of number one son running away from a dog that was only sort of paying attention to him only make the mistake of going into Ashland where not all the motorists are paying attention to what their car is doing.

Which is I guess where I should wind up this rant. We need to watch out more for one another. Nobody, I mean, nobody needs to be on the phone in the car. Nobody needs to text. Put the damn ipod on shuffle, before putting the car in drive, and leave it the fuck alone. The world will keep spinning if you pull over to check your messages. None of us are so important that we need to be constant uninterrupted contact. After all, how can I miss you if you won't go away. That's why reuniting feels so good. Take a little time, so you always have the time.

Watch what your car is doing and hey, let's be careful out there.

Nice escape yesterday. Some of my family took up residence in Ridgeway, Ontario (right near Sherkston) for the past week and I took the day to come play yesterday. Aside from a nasty mosquito issue near the house, the beach was pretty close to perfect. It was a lot of fun to fall in the water, splash wars and even fit myself into a kayak and get back out with bruising my dignity too much, even got enough sun that my farmer's tan from events at work may have disappeared a little bit.





























It was a most satisfactory way to deflower my new passport card. Cherry on the cake of the day was the Duty Free having plenty of Sleeman's Draught in stock.

Just got back from exotic Verona, NY where I manned a booth for the Zoo at a regional travel trade show. Whoever said getting there is half the fun is a butthole. I got some affirmation that I am not a casino guy, as I wandered into to work a little before 8 yesterday and the amount of people at the slots inside the Turning Stone Casino was impressive.

Setup the day before was the bigger deal. The Turning Stone facility is impressive in its vastness. I found the door I thought I needed to go. I asked one of the valets the best route to my exhibit and he did indeed send me to it "Family Circus" style, wandering through all sorts of hallways that I didn't need to be in. At the registration table, they couldn't find me because apparently The Buffalo Zoo was registered under "The." Set up my table all nice and neat and went back to my cheap hotel, "The Inn at Turning Stone," where my reservation was fucked up and I needed my own card which had just enough sitting on it to cover the night. The Inn was right along the highway so it was laden with trucks and other sundry casino driven folks, most of whom were primed to lose what was left of their shirts sometime in the immediate future.

Back to the Turning Stone, where exhibitors got a reception/dinner (Yay! free food), but I had some time so I wandered the shopping mall, tried to understand craps (ain't happening) and generally killed a little time. One of the clubs was a sports bar where I went and had a seat to watch Wolf Blitzer (for a broadcaster, dude says um an awful lot) talk about Ted Kennedy. This is where the Oneidas are genius. They don't or can't serve alcohol publicly. They'll take the money but you can't get a beer to cry into, brilliant! The ultimate screw you. Upon receiving the knowledge, I started to feel like I was Clark Griswald in Vegas vacation.

The private exhibtors reception had a couple saranacs to soothe my gradually ruffling feathers to go along with the nice dinner. Drove back to my Inn, did some email and relaxed a little, and retired for the night.

About an hour later, a thump against the wall from next door. Then another, and another followed by the requisite moaning. A lovely couple was celebrating their casino fortunes with enough vigor that I wanted to have a cigarette. They were not making love, they were performing some serious stress tests for their headboard. Perfect end to a malaprop of a day.

Yesterday, as the show was getting to start after that restless night, I'm prettying up my booth when the guest relations manager wants to know my thoughts on my stay. His mistake, I told him. He handed me a $20 match card for card games, like I was staying after I finished working. Show starting packing up at 2:45. I was on the 90 by 3.

Like most of those gatherings, I'm all set for writing implements now, but was glad to be able to keep an appointment at Pearl Street at 6 last night.

Life in show biz.