Mucha Cerveza

Tommy's so smart...

2006-09-13T09:30:00.000-04:00

This morning Tommy was playing and running around like he often does. And I said to him "Where do you get all this energy?" His response to me showed his intelligence. He said "I get energy from sleeping. And I give it away by playing with toys and running." Granted, he did also say he gets energy from his 3 stuffed kitties, but we'll ignore that part.

FOOTBALL!

2006-09-11T19:58:00.000-04:00

Football couldn't have come at a better time. Just as the Red Sox season imploded and the games quickly became meaningless, the Patriots started playing meaningfull games again. I'm not going to talk about the Red Sox for a while.
The Pats won yesterday, but just barely. And I find myself yelling at the talk show guys on ESPN radio and the sports writers and everyone else who analyzes football. They are all talking about the Patriots always trying to under pay guys. And while that may be the case with some guys in the past, I don't think Deion Branch and Adam Vinatieri should be included in that group.
First, Vinatieri didn't want to go back to the New England.
(http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/peter_king/04/17/mmqb.0417/index.html)
"Last week, Vinatieri told the Boston Herald he never really was close to going back to the Patriots and he didn't give the Pats a chance to match the deal he got from Indy." Unfortunately, I can't find the original article, but he basically said he got the initial offer from the Pats and told his agent not to negotiate further with them. He decided that he wanted to end his career in a dome (where it is easier to kick). The front office for the Colts didn't want to get involved with Vinatieri just to drive up his price so they only made an offer once they were convinced he was not going to resign with New England. Clearly, Vinatieri did not want to finish his career in New England. I may sound bitter about that, but I'm not. It's business. But I am bitter than everyone thinks New England chose not to match Indy's offer when the truth is that they were never given the chance. Also, the Pats found out that he signed with Indy from the NFL, not Vinatieri or his agent. What, they couldn't give the Pats a heads-up?
Branch had a contract to play this year, he chose not to. He wanted to be paid like a #1 WR. A couple of things strike me as funny about Branch. Eventually it got so bad that the Pats told him he could seek a trade and if they approved, he could go. So he went out and looked for a trade, but the trades were basically for a #2 WR. So Branch wants to be paid like a #1 WR but wants the Pats to accept #2 WR compensation for him in a trade? Does that make sense? The other thing I found funny was that he filed a complaint with the Pats, he argued that they had given Branch a verbal agreement to trade him and then broke that verbal contract. BUT HE BROKE A WRITTEN CONTRACT BY NOT PLAYING FOOTBALL! The only reason I'm sorry to see him go is this:
My hope was the Pats would keep him and he would stay out until week 10 as he planned. Then the Pats would impose the maximum fines on him and not play him for the rest of the year. The result would be fines in excess of his salary for the year and 0 playing experience going into his free agency period. I'd like to have seen his value then.
And now I just read this quote from him: "I had to do what was best for me and my family. I have three kids. I’m the one who has to take care of them. The Patriots aren’t going to take care of them. Nobody is going to take care of them but me." He was set to earn $1 million this year. I think thats more than enough to take care of 3 kids. I understand business is business, get paid as much as you can, blah blah blah. But don't talk to me about need to take care of your kids. I only have 1 kid and I can tell you I'm not making anywhere near 1/3 of his salary. Does any working-class fan actually relate to the "taking care of family" argument? Pro athletes just sound dumb when they say that. I hope the Pats still impose the maximum fines.

Baseball

2006-08-10T21:17:00.000-04:00

What does it say when a little league game makes Sports Illustrated? If you're too lazy to read the article, here comes the short version:
10 year olds (Red Sox vs. Yankees) playing the last inning of the Championship game, Red Sox batting down a run with a man on third. The next batter is the best hitter on the Red Sox and the following batter is the worst hitter, a small cancer survivor with a shunt in his brain. The Yankees coach intentionally walks the best hitter and pitches to the worst hitter, who strikes out. Got it?

So the arguement is, was it as simple as baseball strategy or was it a case of a coach picking on the weak kid?
I understand that it is baseball strategy to walk the guy who can beat you to get to the guy you can beat. But this particular game should be all about fun. Every kid bats and games are an hour long.
At the same time, when is it too early to teach kids about the strategy? I don't think this was the appropriate time. I agree with the writer saying the win was more for the coaches than the kids. The coaches wanted to say they won the championship and see their kids beat some other kids. Let the kids play and have fun.

Red Sox

2006-06-30T15:02:00.000-04:00

I've been a Sox fan my entire life. When I was younger, I didn't always follow baseball. My father grew up as one of those kids who would grab a glove and a bat and meet the neighborhood kids for some pick-up ball down the street somewhere. Consequently, he thought I should be the same way and tried to make me do it sometimes. Unfortunately for both of us, it had the effect of making me want to do it even less. But now that I'm a little older, I see the value and excitement in what he was trying to teach me. If I knew then, what I know now... blah blah blah. Not the point of my post today.

So, if interleague play this year has taught us anything, it's that if the Sox played in the NL, they'd go to the World Series every year. They'd be unstoppable! They won 12 straight against the NL. And against some pretty good pitchers. The Sox also haven't committed an error in 16 straight games. When was the last time you could say that about the Red Sox? Certainly not the last few years. The Sox I've come to know recently have always tried to beat other teams with pure strength. You'd never hear about the great defensive play or the great baserunning. The headlines would always be about the homeruns. Thats how they won. Not so much now. Big Papi and Manny still crush the ball, but now you also have Coco catching balls that no human being has any right catching. I mean, did you see that?

So now the Sox head to Florida for the final 3 games against the NL before we go back to the AL. I hope we can beat up on some of the AL teams (Yankees) the way we've beaten up on the NL teams.

I feel weird...

2006-05-15T17:37:00.000-04:00

Ever since I got home from work, I've had the strangest sensation. You know how you can put a movie in the DVD player (or VCR) and fast-forward while your watching it? Everyone's done it before, watching the people go through the motions at a faster speed. I kind of feel like my brain is doing that. I feel like I'm thinking too fast for my body. It's very hard to describe, and its not like the world is rushing by and I can't keep up. More like my brain is on fast forward and the rest of the world is on play. But the really weird thing is that my brain appears to be thinking thoughts faster than it can even comprehend. Like I'll be thinking one thing, then part way through that thought I'll have another thought, then part way through that thought I'll think about how I never finished the previous thought, then realize that I did.

So, does everyone understand how I feel? Its very strange. I'd say I'm on drugs, except that I'm pretty sure I didn't take any drugs. But I know one thing about whatever drug I don't think I'm on... I don't like it. Really, I don't do drugs.

Pecker

2006-04-27T19:36:00.000-04:00

A guy I work with was discussing a claim with my manager yesterday. Part of the conversation involved a typo in the claim file. They says "When you type with 2 fingers, you make some mistakes". My boss says "ohhh... you're one of those!" to which the guy responds "Yes, I'm a pecker".
In a professional environment, the 12 people who heard the conversation (myself included), didn't know if it was appropriate to laugh or not. So we all kind of looked at eachother for a while before deciding that it was actually ok to laugh. And this is further evidence that people need to think before they speak.

Minor Tommy update and not much else

2006-04-26T19:57:00.000-04:00

Sarah has been telling me to update my blog. She noticed the other day that my profile said that I have a 3 year old son. Well, he had a birthday a month ago, so he's now 4. I mentioned the birtday in my 3/11/06 post "Month and a half since last post" but never actually followed up with it. It was a good party. Sorry you missed it.

Since we have DSL this year, and we're Red Sox fans in the middle of Yankee's Hell, we decided to buy MLB.Tv from MLB.com. Its great, we get to watch every Red Sox game on our computer. The picture quality is pretty good. Not great, but good enough to watch every game. We can maximize it on the screen and watch from the couch and its almost as good as watching it on a small tv. We even get to watch on NESN!

I'm watching the game and they just showed the Aflac commercial with Yogi Berra in the barbershop. "And they give you cash, which is almost as good as money!" Funny commercial. Anyways...

I saw this on the news today, check it out. It's amusing.
http://oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com/

Baseball x2

2006-04-13T21:06:00.000-04:00

First let me start by saying that I will make sure that Tommy learns that hating the Yankees is much more important than money. I will make sure that he never signs a contract with the Yankees, no matter how much they offer.
Second, the last 2 Red Sox games have been terrible. The Red Sox pitchers appear to be throwing batting practice to the Blue Jays hitters. The Red Sox hitters appear to be completely confused by the Blue Jays pitchers.
I was very excited by the first 7 games of the season... well... maybe game 1 and games 3-7. We were hitting, pitching and making plays in the field. We're still making plays in the field, but the hitting has been almost non-existent and the pitching has been batting practice. I know losing 2 games in a row isn't the end of the world, but it's not fun to watch.

Baseball

2006-04-10T21:51:00.000-04:00

Last weekend was a pretty nice weekend and we got Tommy outside to play. He had a baseball tee with a ball and a bat. It was a pretty cheap one that we picked up at Target. Tommy hit it 1 too many times and one of the feet broke off. Cheap piece of s**t. He was pretty good though. We ended up going to Dick's Sporting Goods to get a new one and ended up coming out with a pretty good batting tee, a free ball, and a glove. The ball wasn't supposed to be free, but the lady couldn't figure out how much it costed, so she finally gave up. We haven't actually played with it yet, but we will on the next nice day. Tommy really had a good time playing baseball. He hits the ball and runs around the bases.

He also likes to ride his bike. Last year he was a little too small and couldn't quite do it and it took a while, but he finally figured out how to make it go forwards. But once he did, I couldn't make him stop!

I know we have pictures of him on the bike and playing baseball, but I just spent 20 minutes trying to find them and I can't. Now I'm tired, so no photos for you!

Month and a half since last post

2006-03-11T12:29:00.000-05:00

Wow, its been a month and a half since my last post. What's happened in a month and a half? A lot, but not much.

Thomas finally figured out that wearing big-boy underwear and using the potty is better than wearing diapers. One day a few weeks ago, right before his epiphany, I was home with him. He was wearing underwear and I had to tell him every 45 minutes to use the potty because if I didn't, he would have an accident. So this one time, he was playing and then he stood up and said "Daddy, you forgot to tell me to go potty!" And yes, he was soaking wet. At that point, we had a long conversation about how I shouldn't have to tell him when to use the potty. A week or so later, he announced after dinner one night that he had to go potty, ran into the bathroom and did his thing without any help from me or Sarah. Since then, he's been perfect at home about it. He has an occasionaly accident at daycare, and we still use diapers at night, but during the days, he's been great.

My father came from Wisconsin to visit last weekend. It was nice to see him and Thomas really had a great time with him. He took us to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Have you ever been to Cooperstown? You don't go there unless you're trying to go there. Talk about the middle of nowhere. Why would you ever put the HOF there? I mean, who cares where it was invented, put it somewhere people can get to and still be somewhere. But it was good to go. My father really enjoyed it. He's a big baseball fan and remembers all the greats from his childhood. So he liked to see their names and faces on the wall. I never got into baseball the way he did when I was younger, but I'm getting into it now.

We're having a birthday party for Thomas today. He turns 4 on March 13th. The party is going to be as big as I was thinking, but it's still a lot of work. And poor Sarah is stuck doing everything. I got the balloons! And I took Tommy out to breakfast this morning so Sarah could have some time to clean without worrying about either of us being in the way. Speaking of breakfast, I have to mention this last story before I end this post...

Everyone who knows Tommy knows that he loves Thomas the Tank Engine. He has lots of trains and carries them with him everywhere. Well, he's started telling us that he likes to be called Tommy, not Thomas. I'm not sure if it has anything to do with the Thomas stories and toys and movies and everything, but it probably does. So at breakfast, Tommy's fingers were sticky from the syrup (we went to Denny's and had pancakes) and I said something like "Thomas, after you finish your pancakes we can go wash our hands". Thomas made the saddest face and looked like he was going to start crying on the spot! I hugged him and asked him what was wrong and he said "Daddy, you called me Thomas, I'm Tommy". All I could do was chuckle and tell him that his name is Thomas but I would try to call him Tommy from now on.

Well, Tommy is having a quiet time to rest before his party and I'm going to go lay with him. Hopefully it won't be another month and a half before I write again.

Food

2006-01-31T18:37:00.000-05:00

My son is a very picky eater. He likes pizza, popcorn chicken, cheese, cheese sandwiches, and... umm... nothing else. Sarah and I are trying to get him to eat new foods by "bribing" him. We'll tell him "If you eat 2 bites of Mommy and Daddy's dinner, and you don't want to eat more of it, we'll make you some pizza". So tonight we had spaghetti. I asked him to try 1 bite. In an attempt to avoid eating the spaghetti, he chose to eat a piece of spinach. To his credit, he did eat an entire spinach leaf.

I have to say, at one point this winter, I thought the Red Sox were going to self-destruct. But, in my opinion, they've done pretty well. They've gotten younger players and smaller contracts. Hopefully, these players will be on the up side of their careers, rather than the down side. I was pretty upset when Jonny Damon signed with the Yankees. And I'm not one of those people that will say Damon sucks and Crisp is better. But I think the Sox have a chance to be better this year than last. The potential is there, we'll have to see.

My sister

2006-01-24T21:01:00.000-05:00

I just got an email from my sister. She was telling me about this dream she had last night. Apparently my family was in some type of gymnastics competition. And if you know me at all, that wouldn't be pretty. So anyways, my sister starts to do her routine which is a combination of floor and pommel horse. She's on the horse spinning and whatever when all of a sudden she runs into a planter and falls off. My father was the coach of this reject gymnastics team and my sister crawled over to her to ask how I did. My father's response was "Not so good. He sold $122 worth of stickers that had glue on both sides".

What does that mean?

Patriots part 2

2006-01-16T09:18:00.000-05:00

Not to take anything away from Denver, they won fair and square. But I read an article on SI.com that really makes you think about whether Denver won or New England lost. Denver scored 24 points and have 4 scoring drives. They were 40 yards (39 of which was a bogus pass interference call), 7 yards, 1 yard (interception returned by Champ Bailey who was DECKED by Benjamin Watson at the 1 yard line) and 15 yards. Now honestly, which NFL team couldn't win that game? I think the fact that the Patriots only gave up 24 points was impressive give the way the offense and special teams kept giving the ball to Denver.

Patriots

2006-01-15T10:52:00.000-05:00

It's over. The Patriots will not be the first team in NFL history to win 3 consecutive Super Bowls. And the worst part about last night's loss was how badly the team played. The game came down to turnovers. The Patriots did a pretty good job of protecting the ball all year with the exception of last night and the Chiefs game a month or so ago. But last night we had 5 turnovers! Take away the interception Brady threw in the end zone, and we have a much closer game. Plus momentum changes to us. Instead we give Denver 4 plays to gain 1 yard. Then there was the crappy pass interfence call on Asante Samuel in the end zone that put the ball on the 1 yard line and we have a ball game. But there's nothing the Patriots can do about the penalty, although it was bullshit.

So my hope is that the Patriots come out next year as a less injured, more experienced team and kick some serious ass. One problem we had this year was the injuries. Another, in my opinion, was all the new faces. We had coaches in new positions and because of the injuries, we had rookies, backups, and new guys in other positions on the field. The first few weeks of the season were painful. Take those first few games, change some losses to wins and we have a different season and possibly a higher seed in the playoffs. Depending on player contracts, we could have a pretty good team next year that works well together. Is it next year yet?

Clearer Head

2005-12-22T18:17:00.000-05:00

After thinking about Damon some more, I got to thinking that maybe I was a little too hard on him. He's a professional baseball player. Thats his job. And his employer was the Red Sox. At the end of his contract, he went out and found a new contract. He isn't a fan of the Sox, like me. Am I required to be loyal to my employer? If my company's rival offers to pay me more, should I take less to stay where I am just out of loyalty? No. But then again, people don't pay $200 to take their kids to watch me work. People don't collect cards with my photo and stats.

The times of players being loyal to a team, a city, or fans ended before I even knew what baseball was. Its just the way of professional sports. And although I understand why players don't view the teams they play on the way that we do, it would be nice if they did. But then you see what Jason Varitek did last year. He told his agent (also Scumbag Boras) not to negotiate with any team other then the Sox. But I think that was more for family reasons than loyalty to the team.

Bottom line is that I'm less bitter today than I was yesterday. And my bitterness is less directed at Damon or the Yankees (what did they really do wrong?) and more towards the Red Sox. And I ask again: What the hell are the Red Sox doing this off season?

Traitors Should Be Hanged

2005-12-21T19:41:00.000-05:00

The news today was Johnny Damon signed with the Yankees. I saw this coming, but its still sucks. I don't think he actually wanted to re-sign with the Red Sox. He was originally looking for a 7 year, $70 million contract and settled for 4 years at $52 million. The Red Sox had offered 4 years $40 million. And from what the Red Sox are saying, they had an agreement with Damon's agent, Scott "Sleezeball" Boras to talk later in the week. But then they found out (via questions from the media) that Damon had agreed to terms with the Yankees.

If Damon actually had a desire to play in Boston next year, don't you think he would have told the Red Sox about the offer from the Yankees and given them a chance to make another offer? Even from a pure negotiating standpoint, wouldn't you want the Sox to know they are being out-bid? Just on the chance that the Sox turn around and up their offer. But they were never given a chance to make a higher offer. So that tells me he didn't want Boston to give the better offer. And he showed absolutely no respect for the Red Sox when he didn't even have the common courtesy to tell them about the agreement, we were ambused by the media.

And then some of the comments he made after the trade. He certainly thinks highly of himself.
"And I think New York just found the best leadoff hitter in the game."

So now I ask, what the hell are the Red Sox doing this offseason? Do we have a direction? Are we trying to regress? This sucks. Traitors should be shot... or hanged.

Today Sucks

2005-12-14T18:09:00.000-05:00

Today had the possibility to be a very good day. At work today, we had scheduled a nice long 2+ hour lunch at a nice restaurant. And lunch was paid for by the company. What can be better than that? An 8 hour work day interrupted by a free meal and more than 2 hours away from my phone.

So I'm getting ready to walk out the door for work and notice that our stereo no longer functions. I'm 99.9% sure that it worked last night because I have a tendency to look at the time on the stereo clock, so I would have noticed if it were not functioning.

Then I got to my car and tried to use my wipers to clean the frost and my driver-side wiper was only going up half way. The wiper on the other side goes all the way up and down. So now I have to bring my car to the shop to have this checked out. It could be $50 or $500 for all I know!

Then on my way home, I got a flat tire! I spent 15 minutes in the cold at 6:00 tonight changing a tire. And its time for my car to have an oil change. And time for Sarah's car to have an oil change. So this week I'll get 2 oil changes, a tire, and whatever is wrong with my wipers. Can you say wrong time of year to spend this much money on our cars?

I'm not gonna say "Can things get any worse?"... because if I do, they will.

Not a great deal.

2005-12-11T08:50:00.000-05:00

So I'm doing some Christmas shopping for my wife while she's in the shower. I'm trying to get some prices so I know exactly what I want, where to get it, and how much to pay for it. We're also members of the Columbia House DVD club, so I figured I would check there for some gifts. One item shows this: "List Price $59.98 Special Club Price $59.95" That clud price isn't very special, if you ask me. Certainly not going to make me feel like I got a good deal. Well, the search continues.

Red Sox

2005-12-09T18:10:00.000-05:00

As a Red Sox fan, I gotta say I'm not sure whats going on with my team. I know we had a rough year last year, but the problem was mostly with our bullpen, not our position players. Sure, Renteria had 30 errors last year and didn't hit real well. Yes, Kevin Millar couldn't hit a baseball off a tee. We had mostly the same team we had the year before when we won the world series, as far as position players. Our pitching had changed, thats for sure. But going into next year, we could have only a handful of returning players.

Third Base: Bill Mueller, gone to free agency and replaced via a trade.
Shortstop: Edgar Renteria, gone via trade, not yet replaced.
Second Base: Platoon with Graffanino and Cora, Graffanino is gone to free agency and replaced via a trade (which I don't like, but I'll discuss later).
First Base: Platoon with Millar and Olerud. Olerud retired and Millar gone to free agency, we didn't really want him back anyways (see above comment about hitting from a tee).
Left Field: Manny, wants to be traded, we'll see how that goes.
Center Field: Jonny Damon, currently a free agent and wants a boat-load of money and a lengthy contract.
Right Field: Nixon, spent more time on the DL the last couple years than actually on the field and is now the topic of a few trade rumors.
Catcher and DH: Varitek and Big Papi, respectively. Both returning.

I don't like the trade for Mark Loretta. We gave up Doug Mirabelli, pretty much Tim Wakefield's personal catcher. Wakefield was 0-4 when Mirabelli was on the DL and not catching him. Who's going to catch Wakefield now? How's that going to work out? I'm scared. I think I like what I'm seeing, some of it makes sense. And I'm glad the Sox are doing it through trades and not just throwing more money at the problem, although I know we do need more holes filled (shortstop and bullpen in particular). So there may be some free-agent signings in the future, but I'm ok with that. I'm also amused that the Sox, without a GM, have already done more this offseason than the Yankees who kept their prized GM. It makes me laugh. And my Yankee-fan coworkers aren't very happy about it.

2005-12-06T17:47:00.000-05:00

I haven't been ignoring you. I really haven't even been too busy. I've just been too tired at night to post. My friend bought a house last week. When he applied for the mortgage and put the offer on the house, his intention was to close around Thanksgiving. Then the bank kept pushing the closing back a day, then another, then another. Eventually, he was getting kicked out of his apartment the 30th, so he had to leave even though the bank had changed their closing until the 1st of the month. He finally closed and moved in and spent the weekend fixing up the house. I spent most of the day Saturday helping him fix it up. It was "fun". I'll let you read into that whatever you choose.

I want to buy a house. We have a nice apartment, but I hate paying rent and knowing that I don't own anything. But we're pretty happy with our apartment.

As a Patriots fan, I'm glad to see we beat the Jets on Sunday. But we should have crushed the Jets. The Jets couldn't beat a highschool football team. But they kept this game relatively close. The Patriots should have done to the Jets what the Seahawks did to the Eagles last night (42-0 with 3 defensive touchdowns). But a win is a win, so I'm happy.

Work

2005-11-30T17:06:00.000-05:00

You know, its not that I think I'm smarter than the people I work with (because I'm not), but there are people there that just make me wonder how they got their jobs. Today, for example, we had a training class to discuss a specific NY state law. They always tell us the information using a powerpoint presentation and then give examples to show "real-life" situations. Here's how this section of the class went between the instructor and a group of employees who just couldn't get it:

Example 1: NY policyholder, NY accident, NY law applies. Makes sense, right? This is the easy one.

Example 2: NY policyholder, FL accident, NY law does not apply because the accident didn't happen in NY, FL law applies. Easy too, right?

Example 3: NY policyholder, NY accident, NY law applies. We had this one before, but they tried to fool us by giving us some information that doesn't have any effect on the law, like the weather during the accident. Still, everyone got the answer correct.

Example 4: NY policyholder, NH accident, NY law does not apply. Same exact scenario as #2 but in NH instead of FL. You'd think the same answer. Wrong. Half the class tried to apply the NY law and couldn't understand why that was wrong. "But in example 3, we said the law applies" one confused person says, the response was "The accident happened in NY in example 3, the law only applies if the accident happens in NY" Confused student #2 chimes in with, "Well, why didn't it apply in example #2?" At that point I stopped listening.

Is it really such a hard concept? Where did the accident happen? If it happened in NY, then NY law applies. If it happened outside of NY, then it does not. Yeah. We had a 2 hour class on that.

So, like I said before, its not that I feel smarter than everyone else. But I wonder how some people with the exact same job that I have can be that dumb, or slow, or whatever... I have a low tolerance for stupid people, especially when we get paid the same. Ok, I'm done ranting. On tap for tomorrow, something a little happier... I hope.

Start of Chistmas Season

2005-11-26T17:40:00.000-05:00

I already said that I worked yesterday and didn't enjoy myself. After work, we had an appointment to get Tommy's picture taken at JCPenny. JCPenny did our first pictures and they turned out great. Since then, we've gone to Walmart and The Picture People and back to JCPenny. JCPenny by far is the best. The people at Walmart don't do a good job of making sure the kid is smiling or happy when they take the picture, they just sit you in, take a few shots and send you out to choose your packages. Picture People took good photos, but they don't let you choose from all the shots, they print out 3 of the pictures and you choose your packages from those 3 shots. In the past, the only problem we've had with JCPenny's is that they have been really busy and disorganized. Last year, we got there early for our appointment and ended up waiting. By they time we got in, it was like an hour past our appointment. Which sucks when you have a 2 year old and you're trying to take pictures at 8:00 at night. But somehow the pictures always come out nice. This year we went to a different JCPenny's location, closer than Albany. We had a 7:00 appointment and got there a little early (6:30ish) and we were the only ones there, so they took us right in. Thomas was excellent and happy, a perfect little kid. We took our shots and got right out. Couldn't have been easier. The only problem is that he's going through a phase where he likes to bite his lower lip, so some of his smiles are either crooked or with him biting his lip. I think we picked some pretty good shots though.

Today we got up and had breakfast and went to the mall. Sarah had bought Thomas some new pj's but had grabbed the wrong size (6-12 months) by mistake, so we had to exchanged them. The mall wasn't bad today. We found a good parking spot and went right in and out. Now it's nap time, afterwards, we'll put up our Christmas tree.

Our first year we got a real tree, which was such a pain the ass. First, we only had the Toyota Tercell, so the tree ended up going in the front seat and Sarah and Thomas in the back. And when it was time to get rid of it, it didn't really fit down the hall or in the elevator, so there were pine needles on the floor in the hallway for a few days. The next year we bought a fake tree with the lights already on it. It's great. Easy and clean. Maybe some day we'll get another live tree.

Day After Turkey Day

2005-11-25T21:15:00.000-05:00

Thats my turkey! The skin is a little blotchy, and it looks darker in the picture than it actually was. But it was very good. The meal came out well, no problems. My gravy was good too! Too bad Sarah was the only one here to enjoy it. Oh well, maybe next year.

I had to work today, it sucked. Very busy, but with half staff. Yeah, it sucked. And people were being very unreasonable. But in my job, there are days like this. Too many, perhaps. And I decided today, that I will never work another day-after-Thanksgiving (if I can help it).

I'm not really in a writing mood tonight, so I'm gonna stop.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

2005-11-24T09:10:00.000-05:00

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Today is Turkey Day. We have no plans to travel or have family come in, so it's just going to be me, Sarah, and Thomas. Just the three of us. And it will be much more relaxing. Last year I had to get up before 6:00 to put the turkey in the oven. This year, I haven't even started yet. We got a 12 lbs turkey and we plan to eat around 2:00 or 3:00. So I have some time. Other plans involve watching the parade, football, and Snoopy.

I've made the turkey the last couple years, and I'm actually not terrible at it. My gravy needs work. It's not bad it's just blah. So I'll try again this year. The problem is that I don't make gravy often enough to actually get good at it.

So, I need to start preparing the turkey to get it in the oven soon. So I'm gonna get started and maybe write more later.

Today's News

2005-11-23T19:15:00.000-05:00

Its been a few days since I last posted, and although I do have a few things to say, I noticed some interesting news articles that I'd like to discuss, so I think I'll do that.

First, this is one ugly freakin' dog. RIP poor dog. Nothing should have to go through life this ugly. Is that a mean thing to say about a dog?

Ok, now that that's over with, lets move on to something more amusing... and less... ugly.

I've seen people flee the police in cars, trucks, and suvs. I've even seen a guy flee police in a tank. Well, not in person, but on tv. Well, in this story, some moron tries to flee the police on a riding lawnmower. The police had a report of a stolen riding lawnmower and saw a guy going through a cornfield on a riding lawnmower. When the approached this guy, he fled, on the mower. At which point, the officer "jogged alongside him" and threatened to shoot him with a Taser. The thief decided it was better to stop rather than get tazed. Which brings up an amusing clip I saw on one of those blooper shows. It was a police training class on the use of Tazers. One of the instructors stood in the middle of the room waiting to be shot by the other. Unfortunately, the instructor with the Tazer forgot that the projectiles tend to fall slightly as they fly through the air. His intention was to hit the guy in the chest, but he accidently hit the guy in the crotch. That just wasn't nice at all.

But I digress. My next story is so stupid, my only comment is "If this were my town, I would move so fast..."

Drunk people are funny. Talk about walking into trouble, this guy thought a police cruiser was a taxi. He got arrested.

And lastly, have you ever travelled by plane and lost your luggage? Ever wonder where it goes? Apparently it goes here. Some of the stuff they find is cool, but my question is, how can you not know who owns some of this stuff? I mean, how many trunks of Egypitian artifacts can there possibly be flying around the US at any given time?

Thats enough for me tonight, I'm going to go spend time with my family.

Sunday Thoughts

2005-11-20T21:57:00.000-05:00

Well, another weekend comes to an end. The Patriots have their first back-to-back wins of the season. Which has to say a lot about the Patriots season. And its not good. But hopefully this is the beginning of good things to come for the rest of the year. Being in NY, we didn't get the game, of course. We always get the Giants and Jets, regardless of who they play. The good part was that they switched to the defensively-challenged Colts/Bengals game at halftime since the Jets didn't stand a chance against the Broncos.

Do you ever watch Family Guy? I love that show. We don't watch it much becuase it's on at the same time as Desperate Housewives, which we also like. But we do flip to it during commercials. Sometimes I don't understand the jokes though. Like the scene we just saw. Brian (the dog) was dressed as a giant banana and singing about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches... and baseball bats. Yeah, I don't get it.

A couple years ago, I was watching tv and there was a telethon for St. Judes Children's Research Hospital. It was so sad, those children dying of cancer. But no matter how sad or depressing it was, I couldn't stop watching. They never charge families for things that are not covered by insurance, even when the family doesn't have insurance. Since then, I try to donate to them every year. Usually our local grocery store takes donations a couple times a year, so I do that. I just thought of this because they have commercials on to support the companies that support St. Judes. For anyone interested, go to http://www.stjude.org/

Ok, time to go watch Grey's Anatomy.

Stupid Walmart

2005-11-18T19:08:00.000-05:00

Remember about 2 years ago when Walmart stores across the country were raided and illegal immigrants were arrested while working on the cleaning crew? Remember how Walmart said they didn't know, that those people were employees of a subcontractor who was under contract with Walmart to abide by all local, state and federal laws? Well, if you don't remember then just take my word for it, it happened and Walmart played dumb.

It happened again. Law enforcement officials raided a Walmart construction area and arrest 125 illegal immigrants. And again, Walmart knows nothing about it. How dumb do they sound? Either Walmart executives are stupid, or they don't care. I'll let you decide.

Shop at Target, a little more expensive, but better stuff.

Name Change

2005-11-18T18:36:00.000-05:00

No, I'm not going to change the name to a symbol, like Prince. Or change it more than once in a short period of time, like P. Diddy. But I got to thinking about it, and the name "Nothing's Real" just didn't fit my personality. I'm not that kind of person. I don't sit around and think about stuff or analyze the meaning of life, love, or lint. Lots of things are real. I tend to think of things as real, much too much so to have a blog called Nothings Real. It just wasn't appropriate. So I changed it.

So I got to thinking, whats a good name? Whats in a name? That last question is way too deep for me. So then I noticed that I'm drinking a beer. I like to drink beer. And I'm usually drinking beer when I post here. But "Beer" isn't a good name. "Lots of beer"??? No. But what if I translate "lots of beer" into Spanish? And there you have it, Mucha Cerveza. According to the translator at http://www.dictionary.com, the actual translation means "much beer" but close enough. Lots of beer translates into porciones de cerveza, which just isn't as cool.

So my blog has a new name and I'm not sure what else to write about tonight. Cheers! *clink*

Monkey

2005-11-16T17:33:00.000-05:00

Monkeys. Thats it. Just "monkeys". What? They're funny!

Litigious Society

2005-11-14T18:28:00.000-05:00

My job is insurance claims. I spend my entire day talking to people on the phone about insurance. Most people don't know much about insurance. You'll have people that don't know the coverages they pay for (or worse, elect not to pay for). Some people feel that since they pay for some coverage, we should provide additional coverage that they don't pay for, just because they are the customer. "Well, you're the customer who chose not to pay for rental coverage".

I'm always amazed that someone can sit down with their insurance agent and discuss coverages, then a year later, after having an accident, complain that they don't have a coverage that they need. This is, of course, after they've gotten 2 or 3 copies of their policy showing exactly what coverages they pay for and describing these coverages. These customers do, however, remember specifically asking for the coverage in question. And they remember the conversation like it was yesterday, even though company records show they specifically declined said coverage. This is usually the case with rental coverage to pay for a rental while theirs is being repaired. I still struggle with how much to blame the customer. One the one hand, they were given at least 2 copies of the policy showing what they are and are not paying for (1 at the office when they sign the contract, 1 in the mail a week later, and 1 six months later when their premium is due). On the other hand, before I worked in insurance, I didn't know what coverages I would actually need, I was just concerned with the cost. Needless to say, I have much better coverage now. But I don't think ignorance is an excuse. I mean, if you are from another country where it is socially acceptable (and legal) to walk up to a stranger in the street and kick him in the crotch, does that mean you shouldn't be arrested for assault if you do it in downtown Boston? No! Ignorance is not an excuse for breaking the law. I guess I tend to put more responsibility on people for their own actions and for making sure they are paying for the policy they want.

I've also noticed that we as a society are very litigious. We like to sue people and feel lawsuits are the only way to get what we want. I see it a lot in my job. I'll tell someone "I need to do X, Y, and Z before I can pay your claim." The response, "You're going to pay me now or I'll talk to my attorney!" How many people actually have an attorney. If I needed one, I wouldn't know where to get one. But people always say my attorney, like they use him regularly and have him on speed-dial. Someone I used to work with has personally taken people to small claims court 5 times. He's 5-0, so obviously he was right all those times. But you have to ask if it was really necessary all those times.

Anyways, when it comes to customers at work, whether they be my policy holder or the other person involved in the accident, when they threaten to get an attorney, my response is always "Do what you think you have to do to resolve this claim, but it won't change X, Y, and Z." The funny thing is, 9 out of 10 people who threaten to get an attorney, never do. I'm not sure if they talk to one and find out that I'm right or it was just an empty threat. I think people think attorneys are magic and can get them whatever they want. Either that or the thought of being sued will make me pay to avoid going to court. The truth is, I'd rather deal with the attorney, its easier. For the most part, attorneys actually know what they are talking about and are more rational than their clients. They know the law, they know the insurance company is not just out to screw people, and they are disconnected from the process. The clients, my customers, are in an upsetting situation. They were just in an accident, their vehicle isn't safe to drive, and I'm telling them they caused the accident or they don't have coverage or I need to wait for a copy of the police report or whatever. I understand. The attorney is like me, our lives are not directly involved. When I leave work, I don't have to worry about that person again, but they have to worry about their car or $500 deductible or whatever until the problem is resolved.

Another thing about attorneys is that everything takes longer. They have other clients and other things to do, so I leave more messages and have to wait for return calls. And they like to do things in writing, so they send their requests, questions, and answers in the mail rather than picking up the phone. And if I ask a question, they have to discuss it with their client first, then they have to get back to me. It just draws things out and people don't think about that before they hire an attorney. And then I end up paying the same thing I would have paid whether their was an attorney involved or not. So instead of getting $X, they get $X less attorney's fees. I wonder how many people actually regret hiring an attorney...

Travel Notes

2005-11-12T19:48:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm back... finally! Bloomington, IL is a pretty boring place. It's very flat and open. You drive about 1 minute out of town and you're in the corn fields pretty much until you get to Chicago. I stayed at a pretty nice hotel paid for by the company and spent most nights sitting in the bar. But I do have some good stories from my trip.

First, I hate airports. Their busy, hectic, dirty, and lots of other things I don't like. But I do enjoy watching people and you get to see some interesting things. Mostly involving the stupidity of other passengers. For example, when I got to the airport around 11:00 Sunday morning, there were about 100 people sitting in the gate area where my plane was supposed to be. Now, I knew this wasn't supposed to be a big plane, so I was somewhat concerned. As I sat there, I started to figure out what was going on. Apparently 4 flights had been diverted from their destination in NY City to Albany for some unknown reason (unknown to me at least, I'm sure someone knew the reason). So these passengers from Toronto, Boston, and 2 other places I can't remember were sitting waiting for their flights to resume. One lady was standing at the counter arguing with the airline employee who was trying to help her. She was on her way to Brazil for a vacation and after sitting in Albany for 4 hours, missed her connecting flight. The airline rep was trying to reschedule her trip for her but she wasn't being very cooperative. She kept telling him that since he brought her and her husband to Albany, it was his responsibility to get them to Brazil by the end of the day, as was previously scheduled and planned on. The rep responded by saying he didn't bring here to Albany, the FAA re-routed the flight and she was free to argue with them.

Unfortunately, her flight had already left JFK and was on its way and the next flight to Brazil was on Tuesday. She didn't seem to understand. He was trying to route her to a different airport where she could make arrangements for ground transportation and get there on Monday or he offered to put her on the Tuesday flight. She didn't want either and the conversation ended with her getting on the plane to JFK to argue with someone of "higher authority". Apparently the airline reps at JFK have more authority to add a flight to Brazil just for her on a moments notice.

There was also a guy who had been on the flight from Boston to JFK. Finally it came time for his flight to depart Albany and the gate attendants called for everyone on the flight to re-enter the plane for immediate departure. They made multiple announcements over the speaker system and everyone boarded the plane and the attendant checked the passenger list to make sure everyone was there, 2 were missing. So they paged those 2 passengers to board the plane immediately. One lady came running across the terminal with her ticket in hand and boarded the plane. One person missing, they paged him twice more and finally closed the door to the plane and left. About 5 minutes later he showed up and asked when they would board the plane. The response was "It's gone. You missed it." Needless to say, he was not happy. He said he didn't hear any announcements and said that he was sitting the nearby coffee shop. The attendant said they paged the flight multiple times and paged him personally by name multiple times and that everyone else got on the plane. He was then told that his luggage was on its way to JFK and they would have to get him rescheduled after my flight to Chicago left. At this point we're probably 15 minutes late in departing, which didn't worry me since I had a 3 hour layover. He wasn't very happy at all, but he can only blame himself. He was told not to leave the gate area, and he did. Sucks to be him.

One of the instructors in my class told us about another instructor in the office who had taken a trip to Colorado or Utah or somewhere like that. When he came back, he got a speeding ticket in the mail with a phot of him driving through an intersection. It showed the car, the speed, and the driver. He thought he would have some fun, so he responded by sending a photo of check for the amount of the ticket. A while later, he got a response from the police department, a photo of handcuffs. At that point, he sent them a real check.

Well, it feels good to be back home. My fantasy football team won last week, I'm now 7th out of 10 with a record of 4-5. My wife is 2nd with a 8-1 record and it 44 points behind the 1st place team. Yeah, she's kicking my ass. We're also in a pick-em league, I'm in second place (4 behind the 1st place person). Last week I got 13 out of 14 games right. The only one I missed was the Patriots/Colts game. I went back and forth on that one because I knew the Patriots were going to get slaughtered, but I'm a Patriots fan, so I can't really bet against them. Oh well. If I lose the season by 1, I'll know why. At any rate, I think I'm done talking for now. More tomorrow.

Saturday afternoon

2005-11-05T13:40:00.000-05:00

When I first started this blog a week ago, I had decided to post at night after the day had passed and I had an opportunity to reflect on the day. I figured that way I would have good stories or thoughts or something to talk about. I wasn't sure if it would be a nightly occurance or an occasional post when I had something to say. I'm not too terribly impressed with the way I've started, but I'll use the upcoming week to think about it further and decide what I want to do about it. I won't have internet access while in Bloomington. You know what? Looking back at the start of this post, its not really what I had in mind, but I'm too lazy to delete it and start over. Its not so much laziness as a desire to have wasted that time. So, we'll continue.

I subscribe to a couple of magazines, PC Magazine and U.S. News and World Report. U.S. News is a weekly publication which I rarely read on a weekly basis. In fact, I have about 6 months worth of issues sitting in the basket next to the couch. So I took some time this morning to read a few issues and discard the ones I don't want to read. The good thing about U.S. News is that they talk about the events of the past week or couple weeks. The bad thing about that is when you don't read them every week. I just read an article about who would replace Justice O'Conner on the Supreme Court. It would have been more interesting months ago when we didn't know who the nominee would be, let alone the fact that he was confirmed as Chief Justice after Justice Rehnquist died.

A PC Magazine article discussed setting up and running Linux on a second computer, which I thought would be an interesting activity. I thought about changing over to Linux in college, but didn't have time to sit down and install a new OS let alone back up all of my important documents. But now we have a second computer sitting around doing nothing, so I thought I could set that up and play. We just bought a new computer and had planned to sell the old one, but I haven't gotten around to removing all our personal files yet. We don't really have room to set up a second computer, so I was thinking about getting a switchbox so we can just switch between computers and only have 1 keyboard, mouse, and monitor. I just don't know where to get one of those. Maybe I'll be able to start that before too long. We'll see.

I hate Terrell Owens. For those who don't know, he is a wide reciever for the Philadelphia Eagles. Football is a team sport and he is not a team player. This week he was upset with the team for not celebrating his 100th career touchdown. He said the Eagles organization has no class and that if it had been someone else, they would have celebrated. He also said the team would be undefeated if Brett Favre was the QB instead of McNabb. Did he say how a year ago that working with McNabb was his dream job? Its amazing how things change when you lose the Super Bowl. This whole event just shows that T.O. is probably more trouble than he's worth. I mean, how much trouble can 1 guy cause off the field? Well, better he plays on the Eagles than the Patriots! GO PATRIOTS!!!

Hello???

2005-11-04T20:00:00.000-05:00

"Where the hell are you?!?" asks my 1 reader (my wife). And here comes my response... ready??? Too bad, cuz its coming anyways.

I tried to post on Monday 10/31 A.K.A. Halloween. I had this great post about how fun it is to see kids dress up and trick or treat. I also talked about football and how John Madden is an idiot. I even compared him to Tim McCarver who does the baseball games on Fox. I can't remember what else I wrote about, but it was funny. I had a photo of Thomas dressed as a pirate and everything. So after spending about 30 minutes writing, I hit the publish post button at the bottom and I got an error message. I tried to go back to it and it was gone. So I made a new post saying that my lengthy post was lost and included the photo of Thomas. And what do you think happened? Exactly!!! That post got lost too.

So that was Monday night. As for the rest of the week, I was busy. I leave for a business trip to lovely Bloomington, IL. on Sunday. I'll be gone until Friday. But in preparation for my trip, I had to pass 2 tests, so I was studying. The good news is that I get almost 16 hours of OT this week.

My poor son. My wife and I both work at the same insurance company and we both work in auto claims. So when we come home, we talk to eachother about our days and claims and other insurance-related topics. He gets so bored listening to us. And he's going to HATE insurance when he gets bigger.

Have you ever gone to http://www.woot.com? Woot is a great website. They sell a limited quantity of 1 item each day. They start selling it at midnight and sell until it is gone or until midnight the following day. Sometimes they sell refurbished or discontinued or overstock items. Sometimes they sell new items that aren't available on the open market (kind of like a preview or test the product's marketability). Sometimes their price is better than others. But it is always interesting. So today's woot (the item being sold) is "Random Crap". The cost is $1 plus $5 shipping and you get a bag of some kind with 3 pieces of crap in it. Basically, you're paying for 3 unknown items in a bag. How can you pass up a bag with 3 things in it for $6??? I'm just pissed that I wasn't up at midnight to order one, and they were sold out at 2:52 am. The best part is that their server kept crashing because it couldn't keep up with the volume. They sold 4500 bags of crap in less than 3 hours. Is that fast? How fast do bags of crap usually sell? Hmm...

Sunday Sunday Sunday

2005-10-30T21:00:00.000-05:00

Sunday's in my house during the fall are mostly about football. My wife and I, along with some of our friends and family, play in a fantasy football league on Yahoo. We don't pay for it or win anything, we just do it for fun. And I'm not very good. We also started a Pick'em league this year with the same people. I'm not very good at that either. Although I will tie for first this week. I can't believe San Francisco beat Tampa Bay this week. I also lost out on Bengals/Packers (not sure why I picked Green Bay, not even I agreed with that one) and Houston/Cleveland. Houston really pissed me off because they were my initial pick but I changed it just before the games today. I thought every team had to win at some point in the season and since they were favored, I would go with it. That will teach me to change my mind.

I also spent 3 hours studying insurance. On November 7th I have to go to Bloomington, IL for a week of insurance classes. But before I go, I have to go through training CD's on the company laptop and take 2 tests. The CD's are supposed to take about 40 hours, but I've been handling auto claims for 2 years and I know most of the crap they are trying to teach me. Its very frustrating. But at least it allows me to get through the training faster than it would if I were learning it for the first time.

The other thing we like about Sunday is the Sunday night TV. We watch Extreme Home Makeover, then Desperate Housewives, then Grey's Anatomy. We usually miss most of home makeover because it starts while we're putting Thomas to bed, but we get the jist. Some poor family has a piece of shit house, Ty and his friends demolish the house and then build a dream home that the family can't afford to live in. We really just like to see the houses. Last season we were very moved by some of the stories, and one or two this year have moved me... err... us. Yeah, us. I don't cry. Men don't cry. Where was I? Oh yeah. The only problem with watching tv is that we don't have cable, can't afford it. So we have rabbit ears that we have to adjust every time we change the channel. Sometimes we are able to get it so we can watch most channels at the same time. But it never fails, when there are 2 shows we want to watch at the same time, we can't get those 2 channels to come it together. That usually happens for football. CBS is usually impossible to make watchable. But we're used to it by now. I had cable when I lived at home with my parents but then I went to college and they didn't have cable in the dorm rooms, so I didn't really watch much tv. Usually just Patriots and Red Sox games on the common room tv when we could, which wasn't often. Then Thomas was born and we lived for 5 months in NH and had basic cable. But I worked at Pizza Hut, so I usually worked nights until 11:00 and didn't watch much tv. Then we moved to Schenectady, NY so I could finish college and we haven't had cable since. That was 3 years ago. We've also had dial-up cable this entire time and just found a deal with Verizon to get DSL, that started on Friday. So we're exploring everything the internet has to offer, but I think thats a topic for another day.

First

2005-10-29T21:10:00.000-04:00

So this is a blog. Neat. I'm not real sure what this will turn out to be, and I doubt anyone will actually read it. Well, maybe my wife. But only because she feels bad for me that no one reads my blog. In fact I just told her what I'm doing and that I don't have anything to say and she said it would come to me and it would be funny because of something I did in highschool.

I worked at the public library in highschool. I used to reshelve the books. Needless to say, I knew more about the Dewey Decimal System that I ever wanted to. But hey, it was gas money, movie money, pizza money and whatever else money. At some point, something amusing must have happened because I sent a long, rambling email to a bunch of friends about it. But I made a funny story out of it. I was on some kind of adventure at the library. Well, that was 8 years ago, so I don't really remember much about it, other than people said it was funny.

But now I work in insurance and I'm pretty sure it would violate company policy, ethical standards, and even privacy laws to discuss my funny work stories on the internet, so I'll refrain. I like my job and don't want to get fired... or arrested.

So, I'm obviously new to this blogging thing and I'm not sure how long a post should be, I have other things I can say, other thoughts I can share. None of which are important or earth-shattering, so I guess I can save them for another time. I'm hoping future posts will be more entertaining and worthwhile, but we'll see. I guess my thinking is that I'll just come on and write about whats on my mind at night after my son goes to bed and I sit down to relax and it will be mostly for my own amusement.