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.