Maybe We Should Hope it FAILs

As we are all painfully aware, the NY Senate has done nothing but further their reputation for dysfunction for over a week now.  In the last 5 days, we’ver had a Democrat majority, a Republican “coalition” majority, and now we’ve got a stalemate.   I heard somewhere that a judge has ordered the two sides to find a way to decide who’s in charge of things so that they can get on with their work and actually do the shit they’re supposed to do.

Sadly, I think that judge is seriously misguided.  I think it would be hilarious for the whole damned government to screech to a painful halt, and for every one of the fools in the Senate to demonstrate just how little support they deserve from the people that they fail on a consistent basis.  The entire Senate runs like a fraternity with pettiness, patronage, and power plays the major factors in the decisions made.  The people, through their own apathy, have become secondary to the narrow interests of the political parties, their benefactors, and the furtherance of their aspirations.  I know that if the government shut down, there would be some undesirable consequences.  Vital services could be interrupted, and surely some unfortunate situations may occur.  I don’t ask for disaster, but if some minor chaos in regular peoples’ lives is what it takes, so be it.

I know that this probably won’t happen, and even if it did I wonder if it would be enough to sound the death knell of our bloated, inefficient, and irresponsible government.  I fear that it will take something drastic, and possibly tragic, to wake up enough people to finally make a difference.

A Sticker Situation

One of my friends at work came in today with an interesting story.  His automobile inspection is past due, and like 99.7% of the population, he waited until it was actually late to get the inspection done.  The first place scheduled was the actual VW dealer where he bought the car.  Strangely, they couldn’t do the inspection because they were out of inspection stickers.  Happens.

So then it was off to a local oil change place.  Oddly enough, they were out of the stickers as well.  Not only that, they called several other of their locations, and they were all out.  WTF?

I know this sounds a little paranoid, but it makes you wonder.  Is NY so desperate for revenue that they can’t afford to print the damned things?  Or is this a planned shortage that will be quickly resolved – right after a week-long ticketing blitz?  Hmmmm…..

Fourth Time’s A Charm

Well, we went to the hospital for the sonogram the other day, and it’s official: My wife is pregnant with our first son! It’s a boy!  He’s all healthy, and due to hit the stage on October 13th!

Some random thoughts on this:

• Knowing that the family name will live on for another generation is actually a weirdly huge deal. 
• I get to buy toys that I would have played with when I was little, instead of feeling out of place buying dolls and princess outfits. 
• There will be someone to hide out in the basement with when all the women in the house are screaming at each other (just kidding.  sort of.). 
• Finally I can contribute a boy to marry off to one of my friends’ daughters.  Seems that the group I hang with and know has a disproportionately high number of girls compared to boys.  Kind of like my family. 

More to come, once I think about it some more…

Day Of Reckoning

OK, so not exactly reckoning.  Tomorrow my wife goes for another sonogram, and this is the one where we most likely will find out whether we’re  having a boy or another girl.  My first hope is that the child is healthy, as always.  After that, well, I would sure love to even up the sides a little bit.  I have three girls, so a boy could help balance things a little.  But another girl would be pretty cool too.  Either way, I find out for sure tomorrow, and we’ll be a step closer.

Windy

Last night all I heard was the wind whistling through the trees outside.  Oh, and the front door humming again.  I wonder if, here in WNY anyways, that’s going to be the biggest symptom of global warming climate change natural climate cylcles whaetever is going on with our weather that Al Gore is trying to fix by making movies and growing his beard occasionally.  It seems like IT IS ALWAYS WINDY.  This must be wreaking havoc with golf games, but is probably working out pretty well for the wind turbines in Lackawanna.  See, there’s an upside!

Golf

It just occurred to me that I have not gone out for a round of golf yet this year.  I’ve never gone this far into spring without playing nine holes somewhere, or at least hitting a driving range.  I still have no plans to go, though I am going to try for next week some time.  By the way if there’s anyone that would like to get out there, let me know!

It’s amazing what life can throw at you.  Ten years ago I was of the opinion that golf was an inalienable right that I would be exercising every weekend from May until October, with a special emphasis on a week in Myrtle Beach or Phoenix at some point every summer.   Fresh sweet air, a noble pursuit, freedom from the annoyances of everyday life for a little bit, a few beers, friends, what more could one ask for?  

Then I had a daughter.  I got married.  Bought a house.  Had a couple more daughters.  Now I’ve got another kid on the way.  And I haven’t touched my golf clubs in almost nine months.  Life changes in many ways, and I can’t say that the changes I’ve experienced are bad.  I wouldn’t trade my wife and kids for anything, I managed to quit smoking and drinking and lost some weight lately and none of that is bad, right?  On balance,  I have nothing to complain about.  So this is not a rant, just an observation, maybe brought on by the beautiful weather and the quizk glimpse of one of my coworkers showing of their new driver this morning.  Oh, well.

But man, I miss golf.

Off The Leash

A couple times a week, I just write whatever first comes to my mind.  Kinda taking the leash of the mind and seeing where it goes, you might say.  I’ve never actually published those posts.  Until now.  I thought it might be an interesting series, called Off The Leash.   And here’s how that goes:

I saw a picture of Patrick Swayze on the cover of some tabloid or other this weekend.  He looked thin, sick, and old.  The same day I read part of an interview with Ryan O’Neal about Farrah Fawcett where he talks about her being bedridden and having lost her hair.  Both are suffering with – and will likely die sooner than later from – cancer.  In the last year, I’ve lost friends and family to cancer.  Cancer scares the shit out of me, scares me to no end because with every passing year it just seems so inevitable that someone else I know is going to get it.  Hell, right now someone I love might have it and not even know.  Not even know.  The healthiest people in the world can get cancer, and people that practically put out a welcome sign for it are never afflicted.  Even though we know a lot of the causes and risk factors and choices that can increase the likelihood of cancer, it’s still so random.  And terrifying.

I think the reason I wanted to write this was some sort of cosmic vaccine.  It seems that the things we don’t explicitly acknowledge – whether through ignorance or conscious denial or whatever – are the things that tend to bite us in the ass.  Maybe by acknowledging cancer I can somewhat inoculate myself against it.  Dumb thought, but what the hell.  I already quit smoking, drinking, and I eat a whole lot better than I ever have.  No sense in not taking another precaution, regardless of the validity…

I Miss You, Playoffs

I just got done watching two NHL playoff games; Washington vs. Pittsburgh and then the end of Carolina vs. Boston.  Both games went into overtime, and bothe ended rather early in that overtime period.  The Caps/Pens game was the main game broadcast on Versus, which is fine with me.  That was one hell of a good game.  Tight checking, scoring, hitting, skating, excitement, and everything else you want a good game to be.  Then, at the last, the Penguins scored on a shot from the point and the place went absolutely insane. 

It was at that moment that I realized how much I miss the Sabres being in the playoffs.  For a fleeting second I thought of how nice it would be to be a true Pens fan, like a good friend of mine is. and how awesome that would have felt to witness that win.  Now, any time that I think of myself as a Pittsburgh fan is a good time to slap myself straight.  And so I did, and now I’ve got a red spot on my face.  But anyways, that fleeting second has me wondering what it is going to take for the Sabres to return to that heralded tournament, to play for the Cup.  What has to happen?  Who has to go, who has to step it up, who needs to lead these guys?  

The sooner the Sabres get back to the playoffs the sooner I can start rooting for them and not trying to talk myself into rooting for the Caps because after all their star is cooler that Pittsburgh’s star and blah blah blah….

Alice In West Seneca

This evening I went to a stage performance of “Alice In Wonderland” that a couple of my cousin’s kids were in. I didn’t quite know what to expect; my oldest daughter is still a little young to be in plays at school so I don’t really have experience at these events. 

Well, I was absolutely amazed at the ability of some of these kids to perform!  They acted well, sang well, and barely seemed nervous at all.  In fact, it some of the humor that they wrote into the production was the funniest stuff I heard all week.  In short, these kids had a ton of talent!  I shouldn’t be shocked by this, but I think I was just a little surprised maybe that it was that good. 

And then the whole family – me and my wife and three kids and my parents – went to Antoinette’s in West Seneca for ice cream.  Now that’s a good night indeed.

New Extensions

This week my place of employment has begun upgrading our phone system from the best technology that 1985 had to offer. We are moving to a VoIP system that should enhance our capabilites to a level that befits a company with annual sales approaching 9 digits.

The first part of this migration has been changing everyone’s extension from 3 digits to 4 digits by adding “8″ to the beginning of each extension.  I don’t know why this is, but we have to go with it.  And so every internal phone call I’ve made this week has been dialed twice, first the old 3 digit extension – which of course results in me hearing the busy/idiot signal - then the correct 4 digit extension.  Miraculously, I have not smashed the phone in frustration, but it’s only the first couple days. 

So does anyone know what I can expect from this new VoIP system?  Or should I not even ask?

Unrelated Thoughts

I have a few things that I’d like to get off my chest, so let’s go!

The presence of Perez Hilton as a judge at the Miss USA pageant says all I need to know about the event.  I can also say without reservation that a woman’s position on gay marriage has no bearing on my calculation of her beauty, poise, or intelligence.  I may not agree with her, but I also think it’s completely irrelevant.

The weather in and around Buffalo, NY at this time of year is absolutely maddening.  Tomorrow night there will likely be a mix of snow and rain with temperatures around 35 degrees.  Saturday is supposed to be 72 degrees and sunny.  Of course it won’t be 72 at my house, since I live within 800 feet of the 38 degree Lake Erie.  It will probably be more like 60.  Oh well.

This time of year also brings the joy of the NHL playoffs, but there are two drawbacks this year.  One is that the Sabres aren’t playing, which decreases my interest in general and makes it difficult to find my true rooting interest.  The second is that since I have DirecTV I don’t get CBC – the Canadian TV channel that carries Hockey Night In Canada and airs a couple playoff games every night.  I don’t have a strong enough antenna to pull it in from across the lake over the air, either, so I’m SOL.

 

because you care

This morning I fired up the computer to see what was going on in the world, and my Yahoo home page was headlining a story about the Obamas and whether or not they broke a campaign promise by getting a Portugese Water Dog from a breeder.  I don’t want to get into the story, but you can read all about it if you wish.

In fact, that’s the point.  We all will.   I’ll even bet there are more people out there that can name Barack Obama’s dog than could name his Treasury Secretary.  Priorities, people!  Is there anyone out there that voted for Obama because they really thought he was going to get a shelter dog?  Was that your deciding factor?  I wish that everything else in my world was so well taken care of – like the economy, wars, terrorism, you know, boring shit like that - so I could completely immerse myself in such a meaningless issue as the president’s dog.

I for one couldn’t care less what kind of dog the Obamas have gotten for their kids.  Based on what the media reports, I’m in the minority.  My personal opinion is that the media is like any other vendor of products or services; they provide a product that people want.  So if people really didn’t care about the damned dog, we wouldn’t be hearing about the damned dog.  But obviously the damned dog matters to enough people that the media is running with it.  I just happen to think that’s really messed up.

/rant over