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."