Annual office christmas lunch was just a little bit ago. It feels a little forced. One of my staffers bought me stuff which was very nice. Our Business Adminstration chief was liked a hopped up four year old on Christmas morning, so it threw me off with my staffer. She bought me Guinness. How can you not love that. I nearly forgot about a card attached to the box (of Guinness!! Briliiant!!) because I had to present a gift to our boss in front of everybody.

It's a nice occasion, but to me it feels a little tempered. When I attended my first one of these last year, it was just our department and we went out to a restaurant. We stayed at the office and it felt a little weird having the shenanigans in front of non-participants from accounting passing us by. They were invited in, but chose not to. This can be such an awkward holiday at times.

That said, nothing like a helping of pizza and wings to get your mojo running for pizza and wings at the 24 this evening. A lunchtime food coma to kick the afternoon off right. Perhaps, the garlic bread could have stayed out of the mix.

Looking forward to it, especially since the winter apocalypse is coming overnight. I know the tv stations find some brown paper bags for their weathermen. They all seem to be hyperventalating at the prospect of some snow. Like we've never gotten it a foot a time before.

Kids are already counting on a snow day.

Ready for the weekend. It's been a spate of meandering gatherings, financial foolishness, and struggling to keep my wits about me, but I think slowly but surely I'm winning.

Went to a Sunday morning version of my Hot yoga class and came out of it feeling good. This, in and of itself, was a major breakthrough as most of the time I'm wrecked. I found a pace and kept on at just the right clip that I was almost jazzed by the experience. I thought I had a bit of breakthrough of sorts. The euphoria lasted till Tuesday night, where with a new teacher, I was a trainwreck. The key isn't the heat, just the steady pace you keep your breath moving. I fell off the tracks about 40 minutes in and never quite got it back. Just one of those things, but the frustration can make you loopy.

It was the end of a very long day that had me in Syracuse to start. I met my counterparts from the Syracuse and Rochester Zoo to brainstorm and whatnot. I had been to Syracuse a number of times and it is always gray and overcast (kind of like the residents), but the Zoo was a little odd. It is mostly inside exhibits, impressive in a way. The buildings all link together around a courtyard that has a town square like feel to it, but reminded me if somebody used the "Old West" set from Fantasy Island. Ah well, I think the long day threw off my yoga mojo.

There is another board here that I am a liason for and they are exasperating in the extreme. By in large, I rumbling along just fine. Part of our monthly gatherings is to do a Zoo update as to what is going on. My part of that is talk about potential advertising, promotion and most importantly, corporate sponsorships. That last one is something that is tougher to get. Now, both my boss and the board chair also like to hear about prospects for sponsorships, people I'm working on to get them to try something zoo related. One of those is a meeting I have to take in January with one of the personal injury law firms. It certainly isn't my first choice, but they have money and are interested. Now this board heard that and crickets filled the room as there are a handful of lawyers from firms a little higher up on the corporate food chain. So, I got subjected to their attacks of self-righteousness. None of these folks have their companies doing anything at the Zoo. The state,city, county, and the school board are all talking money from us (or at least attempting to) and these jackasses want to give me a little shit about somebody wanting to invest in the Zoo? Puh-leeze. I felt frustation starting to enter my voice so I just stopped talking because there didn't seem to be much point.

Worst part was I had to hang out because they had their holiday party. I was in no mood to grin, so I sullenly slugged back a couple of beers with my boss, partook of what catering food I could identify and headed home. An annoying meeting/gathering that spanked my yoga time, which in turn will make whatever weekend class I get to that much more of a chore.

To quote Yosemite Sam, "I'm thinkin' but my head hurts.

On the much more pleasant side, I got invited to my brother's house christmas party on Wednesday evening after work. Without getting into too much detail, my older brother is a special needs guy and resides in a duplex with five other folks. It's a good setting, well-staffed and designed to create as normal living environs as is possible for individuals dealing with everything mental retardation, autism , to a few "isms" I'm still processing. With the staff's help, resources are pooled and this year they had a party at the Italian Village in Williamsville. I got invited last year, but a work committment kept me away. It was nice to see a genuine holiday thing, even more fun to get a peek into my brother when he isn't dependent on the family. It was the first time he'd seen me not at our parents house or at his place, so the look of pleased surprise he gave me was pretty great.

So, that was a nice place to hang my coat of this week. After plopping down for the Zoo's annual fund, City Honors graduation dues (which I hope means Daughter number one graduates), I figured as long as I was spending money that I shouldn't, what the hell. Number one son and I are going to go see the Sabres and Leafs play tonight.

"Dad, do they have pretzels bigger than my face?"

Yeah, they do. Good times

Organizational meetings can be pretty dull. I went to one this morning and they typically give out a crappy little door prize. As a result, I pay little attention till today when I won! This time, it wasn't so crappy, as I scored two free tickets anyplace Southwest flies in the continental US.

May get a vaca-y this year. Yea!, me!

I noticed that the rat bastards who now own Ben and Jerry's decided to quite making Nutty Waffle Cone and Rule Britannia. Awesome flavors. Bastards! A Pox on their blandly flavored houses.

While I'm at it, there is a Ice Cream topping called Mrs. Richardson. There is a variety of flavors all in the vein of parlor quality and nobody in Buffalo is carrying Strawberry anymore. The hell?

Went to early morning yoga this morning. THe 105 degree room felt really good considering how cold it is outside. To prep for class, you plop your mat down and lay down to give yourself a chance to get used to the heat. I was first one and found a space. The studio marks spaces out and it is very rarely packed. I felt the breeze of a mat going down near my left and got up to see I was surrounding where the other side of the room had room to space. Made me claustrophopic. It's too sweaty in there to be that close together people! Spread out.

People are sometimes a little too desperate to show that they are smarter or more sophisticarted than they really are. The church I go hosts a "Music Sunday" twice a year. A small orchestra comes in and the church's choir gets to show off with some really ambitious music. The place is full to the rafters for this one occasion. Some free classical music and people lose themselves. I got up a few years ago to my son to a class and came back to find a woman sitting on my belongings. A beautiful thing ruined by knuckleheads with no regard. I skipped yesterdays to go work out and felt better for it.

Thinking the genuises who planned the Bills' Toronto game weren't counting on the fact that more Dolphins fans would show up.

Our good "friends" at Time Warner never took my payment for October despite me making it. Argh!

What the hell is Sahara Grill doing selling Christmas trees? Moreever, what the hell is anybody doing buying from them? You know those were cut real fresh back in, you know, August.

Was running some errands last night and found myself in the unusual location (for me, at least) of being in the KMart on Hertel. Among the festivus chaos was a shoplifting bust. Seriously, swiping from Kmart? Ugh

Still bumming over the Friday after Thanksgiving report from Walmart and the poor bastard who died from being stamped to death in a "Black Friday" (Geez, I hate that term) mob of shoppers. Are "deals" that important that people lose their humanity? Does your holiday hinge on beating the fat bastard behind you to the HDTV specials. If that is what the season is about, I'll check out till New Year's.

Liked Cadillac Records on Saturday night (okay not a complaint, but an observation).

But, I was probably going to hell anyway.

I liked (e:jason) ' s line about being as efficient as the NYS Government lately. I feel similarly. Work has been a little static, but thanks to continued hot yoga, I have lost 12 pounds since starting in October. Today's class actually left me feeling pretty good. Onto laundry and perhaps checking in on the Bills canadian odysessy.

Stay warm, ya'all

Pretty sure I got stuff accomplished this week. I would just be hard pressed to tell you what. I don't know if it was the holiday, the change of season, what have you, but it seems like work filled the time space continumn, but left no residue of what happened. My plane ticket win was nice, but it was a sombulent week professionally speaking.

My darling eldest is one bad add looking cheerleader this week. She is on the city Honors squad and took a elbow to her cheek so she is sporting both an impressive shiner and a equally impressive string of nick names. I've settled on "Left Eye" myself. One of her friends thought that displayed a lot of soul for a white guy. That made me chuckle.

Went on an esoteric music binge which my latest Ipod feel good. It absorbed Sinatra's Only the Lonely, Radiohead's In Rainbows with the Forrest Gump Soundtrack thown in for good measure. I got some weird and easily influenced taste. Good call on the Frank, (e:Joshua) . Nobody can listen to "Angel Eyes" without immediately thinking of a bar someplace with the bourbon is getting poored over the rocks.

Apartment building is full once more. The new folks on the third floor had their tv going on before 5 this morning. That I didn't need.

The facebook virus hit my account. I do apologize if a funky looking email hit your account with my picture attached. It wasn't me as I never say anthing like LOL. Supposedly it's all good now.

I'm enjoying my home pc more so now with some time passing, My office just got new pcs and I think I did like the old ones a little better. THe new ones are the intel duo core models but the whole system slowed to a crawl this week, furthering the feeling of getting nothing done.

Univera picked up the tab for another round of yoga so that has me going for another month. I may actually start seeing some progress as I can get through a class without wanting to die as much as I did when I first got cranked up. Got a little definition at the very least I'm back to pre bell's palsy form.

I'm thinking more and more that my free airline tickets should take me someplace warm, beach laden and where there is the reasonable certainty that there are umbrellas fliiating in drinks nearby. Ft. Lauderdale looks like a contender. So, does San Diego. I was thinking New Orleans too, but I've been there before. When somebody else is paying, time to explore something new.

Time to get the predecorated tree out of it's box.