Saturday, October 31, 2009

The Thousand Mile Car

This car brought us almost 1,000 miles from Indiana to home.
Beautiful day, near Albany, NY.




Friday, October 30, 2009

Traveling Sumary

We had a 10:25am flight from South Bend, IN to Cleveland, OH. 20 minutes after arrival we had a flight from Cleveland to Manchester, NH.

A few minutes after going through security at about 9:00am we learned that the Cleveland flight had been cancelled. The only other flight was after six pm and the connecting flight was early Saturday morning. Not much of an option.

The way we saw it there were two things to do. Have the airline rebook us into a new itinerary that sent us all over creation with multiple connecting flights, or rent a car and drive the 950 miles ourselves.

After a few minutes of deliberating we made a decision.

11 hours later we are in Liverpool, NY with 350 miles left to go.

Being in Liverpool we are hoping to get a chance to meet the Beatles. When we do I will post a picture or two.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention I caught the really bad cold Jenny had last week. Awesome!

(in all honesty, I am having a blast on this impromptu road trip my sweetheart and I are on.)



States Jen and I Have Been In

Massachusetts
New Hampshire
Vermont
Connecticut
Rhode Island
Maine
New York
Wisconsin
Maryland
Pennsylvania
California
New Jersey
Indiana
Illinois
Ohio
Washington DC
Florida


Interesting Day

Instead of flying to Manchester...



Jen is driving in Pennsylvania...

Have we had an interesting day!

Travelin'

Know what that is? Chicago! We made it!

Thursday, October 29, 2009

The Journey to Indiana pt2

We made it to South Bend last night a bit after six. The hotel is nice. Jen just left for work. I am staying at the hotel, sicker than yesterday but not bad.

My plans are to get a DVD player working in Ubuntu, to finish the 4th Dark Tower book (almost there), and to hit the hot tub.

Here is our view from the second plane somewhere between Cleveland and South Bend.




Here is the view inside the tiny plane. We were in the last row.




And finally... You knew it was coming... The moon and (maybe) Jupiter(?).




Wednesday, October 28, 2009

The Phillies are winning? The Yankees might lose? Life is GOOD!!!

Journey to South Bend

Our journey to historic South Bend is underway! We have made it from Manchester to Cleveland, OH.

Here we see the Manchester airport tower. Think of the movie Airplane... The tower? Rapunzel!!





Next we see our plane to Cleveland.





The weather pretty much sucks so far. Not the cloud cover below.





Here we see the happy couple in seats 14B and 14C.





Finally, for now, one of these three planes will take us to South Bend. Not the one in the foreground though, that one just backed out of the terminal.





That's all for now, see you in Indiana!

Mini-Vacation

I'm not at work. I am off for the rest of the week. We are flying out later and staying a few days. As if right on cue... I'm getting sick.

Can I get a Woohoo?



Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Camera Phone Fun

We're getting to the time of year when it is dark out during my drive home. You know what that means? More iPhone Astrophotography! I can see how thrilled you all are! Can I get a WOOOHOOO?

Here we see that the sun is not quite gone when I leave work. As the red sky at night (sailor's delight) shows.
photo

But eventually the sun goes down and the moon comes up. If you click on this and look at the full size file you can see another object to the left of the moon. I think, but am not sure, that is Jupiter. So cool!
photo

Just think, I am going to have a whole winters worth of wonderful pictures like this. Oh yeah!

Magic!

I just noticed something...

I am boycotting Firefox today because it crashes on me all the time. Why does it crash on me all the time? Because my box here at work doesn't have the memory muscle to keep it running with lots of tabs open and lots of other programs running. My work computer is old. It gets the job done, but it is far from state of the art. I am not complaining, believe me.

So when I say Firefox crashes all the time I really mean that many programs crash all the time. My Firefox boycott is a combination of silliness on my part and a symbolic gesture to a computer that doesn't give a rats ass.

Today I am using Safari. Chrome is usually my second choice for browsing, but on this machine Chrome crashes whenever you think about looking at it. It is the least stable of my at-work-browser options. Safari is the next choice. Having said all this, it has crashed twice already today.

This, of course, has nothing to do with the actual Magic referred to in the title of this pointless post.

The magic has to do with the flash plug in.

The last time I used Safari I tried to run a flash app and I was told that the macromedia flash plug in needed to be installed. I tried to install it and it failed. Twice. So back to Firefox I went.

After posting the last blurb less than 10 minutes ago I noticed the Bruins highlight video I posted yesterday looked like it was available. I clicked on it and it played. Magically my flash plug in is working again!

It's like Harry Potter stopped by and wizarded it into shape!

Okay, exceptionally pointless post over.

Back to your regularly scheduled day.

Thanks.

The Day Before

Today is the day before we go away for a five day weekend. Not bad.

Of course, after having very quiet times at work over the last three work days I received an escalated issue this morning. I don't think it's a big deal, but sometimes I miss being a janitor.

I am kidding.

Still... I have tomorrow off, which means even though it is very early in the work day morning... I wanna go home!

Seven hours and 39 minutes until a mini-vacation! WOOHOO

(despite what the post time will say, it is actually 10:21am.)

Go Phillies
Go Bruins
Go Jenny

Monday, October 26, 2009

GoMD


IMGP6686
Originally uploaded by robj_1971
Girl of My Dreams.

The Wedding Pics are Done (I think)


IMGP2265
Originally uploaded by robj_1971
I was laughing too hard to really smile.

Cake


IMGP7526
Originally uploaded by robj_1971
We totally hit the jackpot with our wedding cake.

Monday Again... Crud

It's Monday. That sucks. I hate Monday. But... this week is a short week for me. Later in the week I am tagging along on a business trip my wife is taking. It'll be a long weekend for me, thanks.

How about some bad news. My predictions for the Major League Baseball postseason remain at 50%. Unfortunately. That means the Yankees beat the Angels to earn a trip to the World Series. Unfortunately. The Red Sox let me down. The Twins let me down. The Angels let me down. Now it's the Phillies turn.

The World Series will be a match up between the New York Yankees (aka Satan's favorite team) and the Philadelphia Phillies. In a word: Go Phillies. (that's two words) I am a Phillies fan through and through... for the next four to seven games at least. But, again, having said that, again, the Yankees will beat them. That's my prediction. No one is going to beat the Evil Ones this year. The Yankees will win it and probably quick. I'm not even sure I want to give the Phils a game. I think the Yankees in four or five. I HATE THE FRIGGIN' YANKEES!

Last year I had a free Yahoo fantasy hockey team. It lead the league from very early on right up until the last week of the playoffs when I got beat in the finals. Damn it. This year I have another team and after blowing out the first week's opponent and holding the top spot in the standings I am now in 7th out of 12 teams after three weeks. Crud. Suckville.

The good sports news however, is the Bruins appear to be righting the ship. They had a dramatic come back win over Ottawa Saturday night. Watch the highlights. Watch and see for yourselves that Tim Thomas is once again, "The Man."


On the happy news front Jen is feeling much better. Because of her sinus infection last week the kids stayed with their father over the weekend. It was a definite bummer not having them, but it was necessary to keep them from getting sick. On top of that, we are going to be away during our regularly scheduled time this week. That sucks. So Jen and the kids' father changed the schedule for this week so we get them tonight and tomorrow. That is very good. I miss them and will be very happy to see them. They are probably both a foot taller than they were last week.

If by some chance you are from South Bend, Indiana and know of fun things to do that do not involve college football or catholic schools please leave a comment and clue me in to the good stuff. Thanks.

Go Phillies
Go Bruins

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Thatsallota Pictures

All of the wedding pictures are now on Flickr. All 1100+ of them. Now I have to go through them all and make the pictures that are kid-free public so anyone passing by can look at us and be jealous of how happy we are together. Muahahaha!

Evil scientist laugh aside, I can't really just use the bulk permissions updating tool that Flickr was so nice to give us because it only shows thumbnails of the pictures you are working with and... well... kids are small and it's easy to miss them sometimes... actually often times. So I have to go through it one image at a time. That should take me until 2014 or so.

I'll get there though.

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Probably the Most Noteworthy of Our Wedding Pictures

The most memorable wedding pictures are usually the ones that involve clown noses.

IMGP7652

IMGP7653

Wow

Wow do we have a lot of wedding pictures. So many that my laptop actually shut itself down twice during the process.

The last batch should be going up now and then I have to tag 'em and label them and create a set. After that I will make the kid-free images public and post a few here.

Before that happens, however, I am going to take my bride out to lunch.



Friday, October 23, 2009

Pictures Pictures Pictures Continued

I also uploaded the pictures we scanned for use as a slide show at the reception.

I was a freaky looking baby, wasn't I?

img077

Pictures Pictures Pictures

I've been meaning to do it for a long time and tonight Jen mentioned it so I got on with it.

I started uploading the thousand or so wedding pictures that our photographer, Pat Chagnon, gave us back in June.

Here's a sample...
IMGP7292_bw

More Musical Goofiness

I think I am going to do it again. (sigh)

Although I'll probably either change my mind or lose interest before it gets any where.

National Solo Album Month begins on November 1st. I just registered at the site. Last year I planned on doing this too and on November 2nd or 3rd I hid in the cellar and started hammering out a new song. I lost interest on November 4th or so and never got any further. Maybe this year will be different.

For some reason the February RPM Challenge is much easier for me to get into. Probably due to the much bigger community. It shouldn't be that way though. From my own perspective the two things are exactly the same. I write and record all of the RPM garbage myself, just like the rules for this challenge require. The only difference is that this one gives you two extra days, and seeing as I've never finished an RPM on time that doesn't matter either.

I'll give it a try though.

Wish me luck.

More Random Stuff

I had nothing of much value to say yesterday and ended up posting five times. It usually works out that way. Today I have an equal supply of nothing to say.

The Bruins lost to the Philadelphia Flyers last night in the shootout. While they have still yet to win consecutive games, it marks the first time this season they have taken a point in the standings in consecutive games. Baby steps, I guess.

I am ready to publicly state that I think Boston Globe hockey writer Kevin Paul Dupont is the worst writer in the known universe. I have never been a fan, based on his horrible attempts at witty descriptive phrases. The shining example of which is his very commonly used (painfully so) description of the Providence Bruins as the wannabees. My teeth hurt every time I read that.

Today he set the bar for terrible at a new low. In this article he wrote this:

"Not even halfway to the season’s quarter pole, the Bruins, last year’s regular-season champs in the Eastern Conference, have seen circumstances cast them as survivalists, the NHL’s version of the Spirit of ’76, drummer, fife player, and flag carrier."


He wrote that... and was paid for it.

The Angels won again. They beat the Yankees 7-6 last night. The last time the Angels beat the Yankees I got excited and the Yankees followed up by beating the shite out of the Angels in the next game. Because of that, I am not going to get overly excited and start singing about the 2004 Yankees collapse. Nope.

Changing the subject, my wife is feeling a little better today. She went to work. I love her and very much want her to be all better. Keep up the good work sweetie.

I can't think of anything else to add. Maybe later. Until then.. good day.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

My Whole Office is Hysterical Over This

Windows 7 Comes Out Today

Another Windows 7 party. Enjoy!

Two Sides of the Issue

Be safe:


Or don't be safe:


Either way, H.P. Lovecraft lives.

Tagging Faces in Flickr

This is a picture I took of me and the (at that time future) Mrs just after we got engaged. I like this one a lot.

I used it today as a guinea pig to test the new Flickr tagging function. It's pretty much exactly the same as Facebook's except it has a little more control over privacy.

Click on the image to go to the actual Flickr page then hover the mouse over the image and you will be able to see which one of those people is Rob and which is Jen.

Blank

Nothing. Nada. I can't think of anything to add to this one sided conversation today.

Jen is still sick. It looks like it's a bad cold but she's going to the doctor today. It sucks that she started a new job on Monday and had to call in sick on Wednesday. Poor sweetie, I hope she feels better as today rolls on.

The Bruins won. They get to try to win consecutive games for the first time tonight. Unfortunately they have to do it against Philadelphia. Speaking of Philadelphia, the Phillies made my NLCS prediction come out wrong. They have a chance to repeat as World Series Champions. The Yankees and Angels play game five tonight so at some point late this evening the Yankees should prove my ALCS prediction correct. Freakin' Yankees.

What exactly does one do with a free day mid-week in South Bend, Indiana? My Internet researching has yet to come up with anything. So far it comes down to site seeing on the Notre Dame campus or staying in the hotel. I hope our hotel has a pool. I hope it has a hot tub. Give me a book, my glasses, a towel to wipe the fog off my glasses, and a hot tub and I could sure spend a full business day.

The books on tape during the work day commute experiment continues. I'm nearing the end of Dark Tower Book #4. Cuthburt just sucker punched Roland and Roland apologized. He is a Gunslinger after all. During all of my readings through these books in the past I have always pronounced that name as Cuh-th-bert. The guy reading the book on tape pronounces it Queue-th-bert. I find that disconcerting somehow.

The Smallville viewing also continues. We're into season two now. We just met a freak-of-the-week who can literally be in two places at once. He was finishing four years of high school in two years. Makes sense, doesn't it?

I'll see if I can find some videos to post here to entertain you all, but for now I am done.

Go Bruins
Go Angels
Go Jenny

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Sports Suck!

Did you see that post yesterday (all four of you) where I was all giddy because somebody actually beat the Yankees in a playoff game? Well the Yankees got back at my optimism and beat the holy hell out of the Angels last night, 10-1. That's TEN to ONE kids. The Yankees are now one game away from a trip to the World Series. I HATE THE YANKEES!

How do the sports gods top that? Well Marc Savard, the #1 center and top scorer for my Boston Bruins broke his fracking foot! He's out for 4-6 weeks.

Last year the Bruins finished the regular season in 1st place in the East. Their top line was Savard, Milan Lucic, and Phil Kessel. All three of those guys are on injured reserve now. Savard for his foot, Lucic for a broken finger, and Kessel recovering from off-season surgery. Of course Kessel is finishing his recovery in Toronto as he was traded to the desolate wasteland that is hockey's largest market.

Still, the whole top line is gone! The Bruins did make a deal to bring in Daniel Paille from the Buffalo Sabres for a couple of draft picks, but that is hardly enough to save us from six weeks of destruction. (It could be worse, we could be Maple Leaf fans, or Islander fans. I keep telling myself that.)

My fear that the Boston Bruins were going to start looking like the Providence Bruins is becoming more and more true with each passing second.

I am holding my breath that Patrice Bergeron, Marco Sturm, and Mr Paille can click into a strong offensive line and carry the Bruins through the dark times... but Paille doesn't seem to be that good and Bergeron, while still a hell of a player, doesn't seem to be quite the offensive threat he was prior to his near death by Flyer two seasons ago.

The Yankees are rolling...
The Bruins are looking like a M*A*S*H unit.

Oh Hawkeye and Trapper John, can't you save us?

Boy Scout Redux

It's been a long time since I was a boy scout and had to live by the "do a good deed daily" spiel, but today I jumped back on the bandwagon a little bit.

I was at a gas station in Methuen filling up the blue bomber's tank when I noticed something placed on top of the pump. It was a wallet.

A lesser man, who lacks the boy scout ethic, might have shouted something like, "Woohoo!" and started digging into it. I, however, let it sit where it was until I finished my business. I figured the owner would come back for it and I would give him time to find it on his own. When I finished and no one had come to claim it I took it off the top of the pump and brought it into the station. I then gave it to the clerk at the register and said where I found it and bought myself a soda. A small reward for my good turn, maybe... or maybe I was just sleepy and needed some carbonated caffeine.

My wife (who is home sick today, the poor sweetie) reminded me of a situation where she left her wallet at a gas station just before we were to fly out to Wisconsin to visit Mike and his family. A kind stranger whose name was almost the same as that of the guy who wrote The Shining (it was different, but similar) found it and returned it to her. The Mrs suggested that possibly my heroic action this morning was a way to refill the karmic gas tank after burning off some of our karmic credit in that prior instance. Note how I mixed my metaphor there. My high school English teachers would be proud as a bear shitting in the woods. (see, I did it again only this time I did it ironically!)

So there is the great story of my good deed for today. There too is my lame attempt at making something silly and simple sound grand and heroic (I've used that word twice, get it?) Were I to add a tag to this particular update I would use a word like, "overblown". Or perhaps, "retarded".

I hope the guy finds his wallet and I hope that all of his things are still in it.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

The Yankees Lost a Game!

Last night was a quiet stay-at-home-doing-laundry-while-watching-Smallville kinda night. We saw the world premiers of heat vision and red kryptonite.

It's funny, all of my Superman knowledge comes from the Christopher Reeve movies. Suddenly I have this urge to learn everything about the entire Superman mythology... the entire official back story as it were. I don't know if that's possible.

According to wikipedia there are actually multiple official story lines. When the comic writers wanted to do something new they invented a new line based on the ol' multiple universe gimmick. (see the new Star Trek movie. No I am not complaining, it just tends to confuse things for hyper nerds like me.)

So in one universe, Clark and Lex Luthor are friends as kids. In another, they meet as adults. Get it? That makes Smallville just about as official canon as anything. Works for me.

Hey, did you hear the stunning news? The Yankees lost a playoff game last night! After squeaking out an extra inning win against the Angels in game two, thanks to a poor pitch in the 11th (I think) and an error in the 13th, the Angels had themselves a walk off win in 11 innings yesterday. How about that! The Yankees still lead the series two games to one, and I am still positive they will be winning the pennant, but Let's Go Angels!

The Phillies spanked the ever loving hell out of the Dodgers in game three and then won a walk off in game four to take a three games to one lead. The Dodgers goose is, shall we say, cooked? I think we shall. In game five all they have to do to stay alive is beat the reigning NLCS and World Series MVP. Nuttin' special, right?

The Bruins are under .500. I am not panicking yet, but one of their strong points last year was supposed to be depth, and the line up they are expected to dress for tomorrow night's game bears a strong resemblance to the Providence Bruins. Not panicking... nope... just feeling a little, "uh-oh" that's all.

Go Angels.
Go Bruins.
Go Superman.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Bruins Blues and Other Stuff

I watched the Patriots game at my sister's yesterday. The Pats set a team record by scoring 62 points in a 62-0 laugher against Tennessee. Tom Brady set an NFL record by throwing... ummm... I forget... was it five touchdown passes in a quarter, or six in one half, or was it five in one half. Something like that.

At the same time the Bruins were making a couple of roster moves. I didn't learn about them until this morning. Milan Lucic was placed on the long term injured reserve list. He has to sit out a minimum of 10 games or (or is it and) 24 calendar days.

On top of that, they traded Chuck Kobasew for a 2011 second round pick, an unsigned draftee (who is a freshman at Harvard, I think) and a minor leaguer. I've been a fan of Chuck's since the lock out when he played for the Lowell Lock Monsters and set the franchise record for goals in a season (the same year that future NHL star Eric Staal set the franchise record for points in a season, although Staal's record didn't stand for long). He's been playing like an M.I.A. this season though and if someone had to go to light the spark under the team, he didn't do much to save himself. He now plays for Minnesota, the poor bastard. I'll miss him and I wish him the best of luck.

Let's just hope the ploy works and this trade puts the fear of the hockey gods into the rest of the team and they start playing like they don't suck. Please?

Now for a recap of the weekend.

Friday evening Jen and I met at my parent's house and headed South. We drove the entire length of Rhode Island on route 95 all the way into Connecticut. We checked into a hotel in Mystic and pretty much went straight to sleep. We were, in a word, exhausted.

Saturday morning we got up (too late to consider a dip in the pool) and dressed up nicely (Jenny looked fantastic of course) and went-a-gamblin'. The first stop was Foxwoods. We ended up in the new MGM casino. Jen played blackjack while I watched. Occasionally I would sneak off and drop $20 in a slot machine. I never won any of it back. We stayed there for a couple of hours or so, maybe closer to three. When we left we were down $25 (all from my slot machine excursions) and the price of lunch. Not bad.

We then headed to Mohegan Sun, after getting briefly lost. We almost ended up in Westerly, RI which is the home of my former radio show co-host (okay, host. She did almost all of the talking while I pretended to push buttons) DJ Deena. We didn't try to stop in though, we had gamblin' on the brain. We turned around and eventually found our destination.

Again, Jen went to play blackjack while I occasionally wandered to a slot machine. I spent about 4 minutes on two excursions and lost $50. That was enough for me. Jen was doing well at the table and when a seat next to her opened up she convinced me to sit down and play.

Yes, I played blackjack, but in all honesty I just sat there and did what Jen told me. Even when I was getting the hang of it I still ran all of my moves past her first. When she first sat at the table she had $100 in chips. When we stopped we had $250. After all was said and done, factoring my slot losses, her Foxwoods results, and breakfast and lunch, we left Connecticut with $172 more than when we arrived. Not bad at all.

On Sunday we woke up early to get some much needed laundry done. Damn the real world's responsibilities for edging their way into our fun weekend. We also watched a few episodes of Smallville. It is one of Jen's favorite shows and we have made it the next one on our watch-it-from-start-to-finish list.

For lunch we made an impromptu trip to The Border for lunch and then we headed to my sister's for the fall-birthdays-steak-and-cake. We split our time between watching the babies and watching the Patriots. We made some plans for Halloween. Jen and I do not have the kids this year so we are going to visit my sister on the 31st and my parents, where both babies will be, on the 30th. I have always loved Halloween, but I think I love it more now that there are kids involved again.

(unrelated side note, the red tail hawk that lives near our building just totally buzzed my window. Very cool)

So that's it for now. A week and a half to go before we head to Indiana for the first time in my life. Looking forward to it.

Good Day, for now.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Again

Snow... In October... Again.





Sunday

Sitting at home on the couch watching Smallville DVDs. Thinking about heading out and using some of our $172 blackjack surpluss on lunch with my sweetie before heading to the Fall birthdays steak-and-cake at my big sister's house.

Another sweet Sunday with my wife.

Perfect.



Saturday, October 17, 2009

Happy Alternate Universe Wedding Day to my wife.

I love you Jen.

Oh Emm Gee?

What is this?




That's not our house, it must be a hotel room.

Rob is ironing on a Saturday in a hotel room?

Double-you Tea Eff?

They must be off somewhere celebrating what would have been their wedding day.

Friday, October 16, 2009

One of Those Going-to-Hell Moments

A Balloon Boy game. Instant Classic.

heyzap.com - embed games

Weather Confusion and Alternate Universes

It snowed this morning.

Not a short little flurry, actual accumulating snow. Wet, heavy snow. Not a lot but enough to cover car windows.

It's October 16th. We haven't even reached Halloween yet and we got snow today. Traffic on route 93 was about 15 miles per hour slower than a normal Friday. All because of snow.

Last winter apparently has skipped over spring, summer, and fall and went straight into this winter. Crud.

Change of Subject

Last evening Jen heard some nasty high pitched squealing coming from the mini-van. We decided to take it to our regular mechanic today. I drove it there and when I left the driveway I could hear the noise too. 10 minutes later I couldn't hear the noise anymore. All the way to the shop I couldn't hear it. Isn't that just the way?

Change of Subject

If this were a Star Trekian alternate universe I would not be at work today. I would also have a goatee and I would be wearing an ugly gold lame sash, but I would not be at work.

I would also be posting a picture that looks like this:


I would be out making the last, last minute wedding preparations for tomorrow's big day. That's right, today was our originally scheduled wedding rehearsal day. Today is the day that Alternate-Universe-Rob (goatee and all) and Alternate-Universe-Jen are holding their final wedding ceremony run through. I wish our Alternate-Universe-goatee-wearing-selves the best of luck. I can tell them honestly that this is going to be the happiest time of their lives and that married life is going to be fantastic.

I should send them a gift.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Major League Baseball League Championship Series

So my predictions for the Divisional playoffs weren't all that great. I was wrong on the Red Sox vs Angels series, and that alone is enough to make the entire prediction game a massive failure. I picked those pricks from New York to beat the Twins so I was right on that one, as painful as that is. I was right to pick the Phillies over the Rockies, and I was wrong to pick the Cardinals over the Dodgers.

That's a winning percentage of 50%. Not so great, not so bad.

Now we come to the League Championship Series. I will start in the National League. I was wrong to go against the Dodgers. Hell, I saw the Dodgers play in Dodger Stadium this summer, how could I have picked against them (Joe Torre and Manny Ramirez, that's how). The Phillies were my first little league team. How can I root against them now?

Easy. I am picking the Los Angeles Dodgers to win this series. Being a repeat champ is probably the hardest thing to do in all team sports. The law of averages says the Phillies are going to lose. I even wore a Dodgers jacket to work on Tuesday. That's how sure I am of the Dodgers making it to the World Series. (not really, the dodgers jacket just happened to be the closest jacket to the front door, but why spoil the drama?)

Now for the American League. The Red Soxless American League. The Boston-free American League. Damn it, it still hurts! Ever since Dave Henderson turned things around in 1986 the Angels (be they from California, Anaheim, or Los Angeles) have been Boston's bitches. There, I said it. We've smacked them around and squashed them at all turns. We owned them.

Now? Now? Now that they've beaten us, what does it mean? It means I have to root for them because they are facing the friggin' Yankees in the cursed second round. Damn you New York!

I am a 100% Angels fan now, just as I was a Twins fan in the last round. I root for two teams. The Red Sox and whoever beats the Yankees. It's the Angels' turn to try and beat the Yankees so I am totally in their corner.

Of course the Yankees are going to win the series. They are going to beat the Angels and then beat whatever National League team gets to be their cannon fodder in the World Series.

That's my prediction. I seriously hope I am wrong about the American League, but my picks for the second round are the Yankees and the Dodgers. There, I said it. I can't take it back now. DAMN IT I HATE THE YANKEES!

Go (urgh) Angels. (barf)

On the up side, the league will have a good marketing angle for the World Series regardless of who wins. If the Phillies win then the focus will be on the attempt to repeat. If the Dodgers win there will either be a cross town L.A. series against the Angels (please let this happen, please!) or the classic rematch of the old Yankees/Dodgers rivalry.

According to this site the New York Yankees and the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers have met in the World Series 11 times.

The Yankees won in 1941, 1947, 1949, 1952, 1953, 1956, 1977, and 1978 (Bucky Bleepin' Dent!). The Brooklyn Dodgers won in 1955 and the Los Angeles Dodgers won in 1963 and the most recent meeting in 1981.

Here's hoping the Dodgers take it in 2009 too.

Here's hoping even more the rematch doesn't happen because the Angels bounce the Yankees out in the second round.

Go Dodgers.
Go Angels.

Go Bruins.

Travelin' Folk

October 17th is coming this Saturday. That was supposed to be the big day for the missus and me. Had we stuck to our original plans we would have been getting married this weekend.

We had the date set, a hotel hall booked, and all of the bigger details in place when it occurred to us (being the financially savvy folks we are... or should I say being the financially savvy folk my wife is) that we were going to completely empty all of our life savings in order to pull off the plans, and even then we might not have enough to bring it together. So we restructured everything. Different date, Smaller guest list, smaller hall, smaller catering, smaller everything. In the end we were both very happy with the way the happiest day of our lives turned out. The changes were proper and correct.

So October 17th became May 30th and all was right with the world.

But wouldn't it be fun to do something on the 17th anyway? It was Jen's grandfather's birthday, which was why we chose that day in the first place, so it's still a special day. Why not celebrate for the sake of celebrating?

Okay, let's do it!

We thought of a couple of possibilities. Going up to the mountains for a second weekend in a row was one choice. A conversation with my mother on Monday sealed it though. She was telling us about her and my father taking a trip to Foxwoods. The seed had been planted and by Wednesday night the plans were in place. We are going to celebrate our would-have-been-wedding-day acting like high rollers at the ol' casino in the southland. (well... southern Connecticut at least.)

Jen likes to play the tables. I like to watch Jen play the tables. My gambling experiences are very limited. I've been to the two CT casinos a couple of times each but have only played slots, and even then my maximum gambling investment was a $20 bill. Once at Mohegan Sun though I turned that into about $150. The other times I lost my investment all but instantly.

Jen, however, has been known to make a killing. The first time we went to Foxwoods together she quadrupled her max investment in less than an hour. She's amazing!

So this weekend we're taking a quick trip to the south. Sounds like fun right?

But wait! There's more!

Jen is starting a new job next week. The office she is working in is in Massachusetts and it's a brand new branch of a much larger company based in Indiana. She has to go to an orientation at the office in South Bend, IN. Home of Notre Dame University. The meeting is scheduled for the end of the month... and guess who is tagging along? That's right, me! Your humble narrator. We fly in, Jen has her meeting, we fly out. Quick and simple. While she's at work I will have to find something to do. I will most likely take my camera to the University and snap a shot of Touchdown Jesus. There is also a chocolate factory in town that sounds like a yummy way to fill a little time.

One month... two quick little travelin' trips. Sounds like fun to me!

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

My Wife Loves Me

My wife loves me. Wanna know how I know? (did I mention this already?)

She sent me a Google Wave invitation. Yup, Mr and Mrs Robbie are now Wave users.

First impression? It's neat, but I don't know if it will replace email and instant messages the way the good folks at Google seem to think it will... or at least their marketing department is saying they think that way.

Is it a replacement for email? Probably not. Maybe, but I doubt it. It's a little too easy to rewrite past messages and reply to things out of order and I can see it being fairly simple to lose your place and miss new messages... although there is a way to mark things as read or unread.

Is it a replacement for instant messages? That's a little more of a possibility. The one thing missing is a notification. I seemed to catch it changing my title bar and the tab on firefox, but that is real easy to miss if you don't have firefox up all the time. I did see something earlier on twitter that mentioned a firefox extension that might fix this oversite. There is also the possibility of it being added to the standard code as well if enough beta testers ask for it.

It's kinda silly, I know, but from a net nerd's point of view it's also pretty cool. Granted I am easily amused by such things... still, I like it so far. My first impression is good.

One thing to note, I do not believe I have any invitations to give at this point. Jen got her invitation from Google and she had the option to invite other people. I don't seem to have that option at this time, so don't ask me to invite you. Granted, there are only four people reading this and two of them already have accounts... so I don't expect to be flooded with requests.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Leaf Peeping Pictures

We went up route 93 to route 3 to the Kancamagus Highway. We crossed from one end to the other, stopping a couple of times at scenic view spots. The weather wasn't cooperating. We had rain and even some early October snow. It was also really cold. When we reached Conway we went to Cathedral Ledge and were completely blown away. The best pictures come from there. We then worked our way back South again and stopped at the Indian Head Resort for lunch and a view of the Indian Head.

Prepare to be bombarded with pictures... here they come!

The first batch come from various stops along the Kanc. Some of these were the same places we stopped at last year. Some others are from a visitors center in Conway, NH.

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The sky tried to clear up a few times, but it never lasted long.
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Now we come to Cathedral Ledge. There is a road to the top that was narrow and busy with cars parked all over the place. Lots of stupid people decided to visit the site that day and they annoyed us greatly, but the view made up for it.

There were a few groups of sanity-challenged climbers on a couple of the cliff faces.
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My beautiful wife in front of a beautiful backdrop.
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That's all I am going to post today. Go to the flickr page to see a few more. I had a great time on this day trip. We went over 300 miles and it took the entire day, but we got to see some spectacular sites. Even better, we got to spend the day together as a family. It was great.