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Been missing the sound of the water. Hope Spring is about to do its thang. Wandering in the Saturday sunshine at the Marina.

You never stop getting tested. Been camped out at Women and Children's Hospital during the first part of this week. Going into last weekend, my older daughter was complaining of a sore throat that was funky enough that we took her to the Dr's office on Saturday morning. It was promptly diagnosed as Tonsilitis and Antibiotics were prescribed. We took her home and got her settled in and she took her stuff saturday.

Sunday she was having a tough time getting them down. She got herself dehydrated so the doctor said time to quit fooling around. To alleviate that, the solution was to head for the hospital and the safety and comfort of hydrating IVs and a liquid form of the antibiotic to chase stuff away. Her mom stayed with her Sunday night and I did the job Monday evening (getting a little old to sleep in a chair, but you do what you do). We got her back home Tuesday night, where she is recovering and should be ready to greet the world once more. But you fall back into roles pretty easy. My ex and I were never shy when it comes to speaking up. I'm pretty sure there is a file on us at Sisters from when Number One Son was born. The staff mentioned a painkiller to ease the tonsils. It wasn't administered right away. So, my former spouse looked at me on Monday night and said: "Pardon me, I'm going to have a Aurora Greenway moment (Shirley McClaine in Terms of Endearment). Painkiller was delivered straightway. I laid out the kids dentist office for trying to give us a hard time for missing an appt for number one son on Tuesday morning. Medical staff is insanely great, it's the administrators who need to be incorporated in health care reform. I never looked up from a chair before to discover we were in the middle of rounds.

She is 18 and you are in charge of that point. While we were getting checked out in the INT ward. I couldn't help but laugh a little when Mighty Daughter said her Mom and I could speak for her.Things you'd never thought you'd hear, right? Right up there with hearing her say "Mommy" or "Daddy" without it being ironic.

I had to do a sponsorship presentation for work mid-day on Tuesday. At that point, we engaged the grandparents for a little help. I did most of the prep work last week, but nothing like addressing the hierarchy of one of the local health care providers on sleep that was mostly a series of short naps. Between that and the amount of coffee I had, I must have sounded like the fast talking guy from the American Express Ads. It must have worked because they signed on for two years.

So, I'm glad for the warm weather and pending weekend. Mike needs a beer.

It's a nice idea. Number One Son and I headed out today to partake and see what there was to see. Lot of folks trying to fit in places not entirely made for crowds. I still think there might be a person trying to get their stroller through the slush by the broom ball court.

The ride down the skyway, it was fun for the bragging rights, but required me to make like fred flinstone starting the car to make the final assault. My camera died so no POV pic there. Ice maze has only one exit and with so many folks, it felt more like a long line to someplace else but we made it out.

Some Broomball was being had and they were mostly splashing water on each other. All the snow is really wet and in need of a little powder for things to get pretty again.

So, it was fun to explore, but the beer tent and all the smokers are pretty predominant.












Took a couple pictures through the rained on ramp to my parking space, just because it looked kind of cool.

If you go tomorrow, car pool and park in the Bisons ramp, just $5 and plenty of space, cheaper than train tickets.

've been to sporting events with lousy seats, with no seats, with good seats, and with very rich seats. Let me tell you rich is better.

Thanks to my day job, I was invited to take up residence in a suite for the Sabres vs. Sharks game on February 13th. It's a beautiful thing. Not being the tiniest of guys, I can shoehorn myself into the 100s just fine, but the suites are a whole new world. Space, views, comfy chairs, oh, my. I took my 11 year old son who took to this level of exclusivity without a trouble. We were the first to arrive and the hostess came down to announce herself and there is something in the way my boy said "Dad, we have our own waitress?" that still makes me laugh.

We've all been at something where a great view is ruined by a beer-swilling popcorn spilling wooly mammoth who sits down right in front of you.

After a brisk walk across the windiest place on the planet, the street in front of the Arena, we "moved on up."











It was a fine evening, and did wonders for my disposition and my youthful sidekick who had a long week, too

I'm at a loss to explain what was going on with my hair at that moment but we were getting spoiled, something everybody should get once in awhile, so who cares.





Yes, sure, part of the fun is that it was on somebody else's dime. It does remind you of that episode of Seinfeld where Jerry is flying first class and the attendent asks if he wants more of anything, and the only true answer is more of everything.

Food prepped with a little more care, hostess who makes a special point to tell me where the Molson Canadian is, unencumbered view, great company, and a win.

We could wave off our balcony to the unfortunate masses, but I figured a picture was a much more quiet, dignified way of gloating



Good times.

Journeyed out to my folks house on Sunday night for the Super Bowl and birthday dinner for myself. My elder sister has been living there basically sitting shiva for her former life in NYC. She's been there since the first of November and is still waiting for a miracle to be delivered unto her, which in this economy ain't happening. So, she has been delving into a project here or there, turns out my birthday dinner has been one. I wish I knew what to do, but when the three of them decided that none of us need cake, my inner 12 year old wanted to yell, "But I would like some." Instead, I shut up and ate my strawberries and watched Pete Townshend at halftime.

At work, they've had a tradition of birthday lunches which forever getting tweaked and people were peeved that I was the only February birthday and there were four in June. This discussion happened last thursday and it made me dread monday as we sat in Kostas with at least three out of the nine people muttering about the birthday stuff and two guys who said the hell with it. My colonoscopy was more entertaining. One of my great colleagues made cake so I blotted out the idiocy for a few. Things picked up when I made it to my former house for a really nice dinner with my kids and their mom. We were able to laugh a lot. Told my boss that given how people are behaving, I'm taking the day off next year to avoid the b.s. If I wanted a stress laden day, I can always go to my folks house.

One of my dad's contacts at Roswell gave him seats for Tuesday night's Sabres game, which was fun. We repaired to Fat Bob's for a quick dinner before and spent most of the time vented about the shadow that my sister is casting over their house.

Went to my church board meeting and got yelled at by a factually challenged old codger, so that was fun.

Went out a little bit ago to run errands for an event we have tonight and on the way to my second stop, the car in front of me has its reverse lights on and the driver is lost in conversation. We're close enough to my Tops stop on Maple so I snuck in the driveway, just as the light changed and she barrels into the guy who was behind me. I picked up my stuff rather shakily and check to make sure that guy isn't looking for me and head back down Transit, where I get into the traffic jam caused by the 3407 walkers. It was worth the 75 cents on the thruway to get back into the city where it is safe.

Got tickets for the suites for tomorrow nights Sabres game. Beer should flow, especially on their tab. Guess I no longer sound like a grumpy old man, since I'm now closer to being one.

(e:Drew) got me thinking. He'll learn

You got to have faith.

In what exactly, that is not always clear. One of the Buddhas of my youth posited that "Blind faith in anything can you killed." A little extreme, but I think he has a point. We need to ask questions and allow for the fact that we aren't always right. What works for you should be respected, but might not work for me, and that should be okay.

I go to a church semi-regularly that professes to be all-welcoming, but I've seen incidents that we are essentially as full of shit as any other faith based gathering. I still kick myself over not stepping up for this young woman who was sitting with her baby. The baby was cooing and charming the pants out of pretty much everybody in the section except for these two old bitties who harped on "there's a quite room for babies..." to the point where the woman and her child understandable left. Drives me nuts. Church elders kvetch about the teens not immediately diving into the church community once they are out of high school. One of the really bright young women at the church gave a sermon recently about how she needed to look or looks for God in people. I thought that was incredibly apt, as there really isn't any other place within which to look. You want to see something tangible. It's sometimes hard to take written word as gospel (pun entirely intended). A former employer wrote of how it is possible to be good, live a good life without cowtowing to a particular diety, and I do think he's correct in that regard.

George Carlin used to do a great bit about "how the invisible man in the sky that I believe in can kick the ass of the invisible man that you believe in."

Faith is a personal thing. What is good for you is naturally going to be different for me. Both those goods have merit. But you don't always get to those ends by the ritual sunday morning gatherings, sometimes I've gotten more from the hour long mental holiday than by what has been presented to me.

But that doesn't define me and your faith doesn't define you. By the same token, none of them should determine well, anything for anybody, outside of those gatherings. I guess that is a little redundant, but I guess this has it's roots in my reading opinions about the ongoing Gay marriage debate and inevitably the columnists against would invariably exclaim "the church recognizes..." Well, for many reasons, it's a good thing there is more than one church.

We first started taking our kids to the church as more of a community thing, so they can see what is out there and eventually drawn their own conclusions. I'm pretty sure that was the same rationale my folks applied to me and my siblings.

So, I'm not entirely sure where I stand other than to believe anything is possible. As Robin Williams said some years ago, "You know God must have a sense of humor, look at a platypus!"

My phone is getting smarter after work - yay Iphone hood, but it will be a bit before I'm up for the Ipad, unlike our friend below.

Sure, it stunk getting into work this morning, then I got the reminder about this lovely storm from somebody who had the termerity to not be alive when it hit. 33 years ago today, I got a whiff of capitalism. Neighbors went to Florida two days before and hired me to shovel their driveway while they were away, figuring they'd pay me for a couple of passes. Then the Blizzard of '77 hit. Without sounding too old man like (since I know most of you weren't here yet), that was a storm. Can you say eight trips?? My best childhood chum and I went on a record purchasing bender at National Record Mart with our proceeds.



Till that storm, helping my dad with the snow removal largely consisted of staying out of the way while he ran our behemoth of a snow blower. Mom would say "perhaps you should help your dad." I could sincerely reply "I am" while watching tv. This made sense as the snowblower was a big one and the last thing you needed while running it was somebody else "helping" at one end of the driveway.

This was mammoth snow and the blowing made things impressive until you had to move them. My childhood had such an odd shape that a roughly eight foot wall formed outside the back door, but left enough of a canal to the garage that we could make it to the garage to access our "Battery of snow-fighting equipment."

The winds made it a multiple day chore, but by the time the worst was over, I was an ace snowblower pilot and using that on those Florida bound neighbors, who are still stuck listening to everybody else's Blizzard tales.

My longtime partner and crime used the almost two weeks off from school on some arctic architectural pursuits, constructing a snow fort still legendary in its expanse, two floors, complete with slide to get from the balcony level down to the mezzanine.

Even the neighborhood bully was impressed