Bits and pieces

Random things I thought were worth mentioning:

The Red Sox announce the return of Theo Epstein
For those of you who may think that the Red Sox offseason was a little Schizophrenic (to quote Andy), I think the Boston Red Sox Org Chart explains it pretty well.

New TV Network
CBS, Time Warner announce the closing of UPN and the WB, plan to launch new combined TV network. This is not particularly notable, except for this quote from Leslie Moonves, Chief Idiot Officer of CBS corp musing: "the new network will air 30 hours of programming seven days a week aimed in part at young audiences." I for one am looking forward to the first-ever 30/7 network. I was getting tired of all those channels that only offer me programming 24 hours a day.

Is it just me, or are people in Rochester, NH extraordinarily stupid? Today, I was at the Walgreens drive-though waiting to pick up a prescription for my wife. I was sitting there waiting in the lane right beside the building when a beat-up car pulled up in the Pneumatic tube lane. Naturally, the walgreens employee decided to help them first. So the Lady in that car shouts her name, and the Walgreens employee asked her to drive around front and come in the store. Apparently not understanding english, the lady shouts her name again. This went on at least twice more before the employee shrugged her shoulders and disappeared to look for the lady's order. When she returned, she hoisted a very large box - at least 100x the size of anything that would fit in that stupid little pneumatic tube. Finally, the lady gets it, and with a big 3-tooth grin, sends one of her passengers to walk all the way around and into the store to retrieve the large package - ALL THE WHILE STILL SITTING IN THE DRIVE-THROUGH LANE!!!! Her reasons for staying there became apparent eventually, when the guy that was sent inside didn't have the money, so she STILL had to use the pneumatic tube to pay for the stuff - only after yelling at the pharmacist to have the guy inside pick up some over the counter cold medicine (halfway across the store). The sad thing is that this sort of thing is a daily occurrence in Rochester. I can no longer bring myself to shop at the Rochester Walmart, choosing instead to drive another 15 miles to the one in Somersworth.

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If you are looking for pictures as promised on "friend's cafe"...

I haven't gotten around to it yet. But I will. Eventually.

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Thank You, Al Gore....

...For Inventing the Internet. It is the greatest invention of all time. Why? you ask - Because it has made possible the miracle of "working from home". For those of you who do not live in New England, it is snowing today. The roads are a mess, traffic is terrible, and it is just generally unpleasant to be out of the house. Instead of driving 85 miles to sit on my butt all day, surf the internet, answer emails (90% of which are personal) and stand around complaining about the Patriots and/or Red Sox, I can do all of the above from the comfort of my home office. I didn't have to get a shower, comb my hair, brush my teeth, put on clothes or any of the other menial, detestable tasks that one must generally do to make themselves presentable as a member of the general workforce.

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Breaking News - or not

Didn't we pretty mcuh know this already? I'm glad they finally made it official, though. It WAS getting to be a bit of a distraction.

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My Cell Phone Hates me

I think my Cell Phone hates me. We've only been together for a little over a year and it keeps trying to leave me. Tonight when we were at Pizza hut it apparently decided it didn't want to come home with me and stayed behind, sitting on the Salad Bar. I'm not sure if it was really trying to leave, or simply trying to piss me off - knowing that I would drive all the way home and then have to go back and get it. This is not the first time this has happened - and when it's not trying to leave me, it's always trying to hide from me - under the car seat, between the couch cushions, etc..

Last Friday it apparently decided to commit suicide when it jumped out of my sweatshirt pocket into the Urinal at work- AFTER I had finished, um, well - you know. THAT was a mess. Fortunately, Big A's world is not a constitutional republic with things like a supreme court that decides everyone has a constitutional right to die. This is a dictatorship where things are permitted to die only on MY terms. So I fished it out, cleaned it up as best I could, and nursed it back to health.

I don't really understand what brought this on - I thought we were happy together. Oh, sure - sometimes late at night after it was sitting on the charger getting it's rest for the busy day tomorrow - I might have surfed the web and looked at pictures of other phones - some of them may have been prettier, or a little skinnier, or maybe willing to do "extra" things that mine wouldn't for a nominal fee - but surely it knows I was just looking, right? There's no harm in that - I mean it's not like I am cruising the streets looking for payphones or anything like that.

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Holy Crap, I'm old.

So my Oldest Son turned 10 today. I know this because he woke me up two hours before my Alarm went off to tell me. It is flabbergasting to think that I have been a parent for a decade. Even more disturbing is the realization that my time with him as a child is more than half gone. (assuming he doesn't turn into a loser that lives with his parents until he's 40 - which IS a distinct possibility at the rate he's going).

There are many things I am dreading about the next 8 years:

- The conversation where I inform him that I have spent all of his college money on diapers, happy meals, and ATV parts.....

- letting him get behind the wheel of a car knowing all of the stupid things I did when I was 16.

- The "facts of life" talk. One of the downsides of homeschooling is that I can't count on his friends at school telling him about this stuff - it is all up to me. THAT should be fun - especially since (in light of my wife's 10 pregnancies to date) I have been accused many times of not knowing them myself.

- and in general all of the stuff that comes with having a teenager in the house.

Ah, but it's not all bad. Today I am choosing to look at the bright side:

- He is now old enough to do stuff that have up until now been my responsibility - shoveling snow, yard work, cleaning the garage, etc...

- He is now old enough and has developed enough skill to join me in the activities that I enjoy - without making me want to pull my hair out. Let's face it - we all enjoy spending time with our kids, but have you ever tried to teach a little kid how to golf or ski or catch a pop fly? For a while, it can be enourmously frustrating - but rest assured it gets better.

- And he is only a couple of years away from being able to babysit his younger siblings. What happy day THAT will be.

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