Way to Go Buffalo, you beer-hounds!

"'... Canadian commercial culture also plays a part. Regional TV carries binational ads that speak to the inner Canadian in Western New Yorkers, fueling a craving for Tim Hortons doughnuts. ...'"

I Love that "inner Canadian"... it's soo true.

Say...What??!?!?

This evening driving home from fitting Ross for Goalie gear, eee Gods, there was some traffic back up for some unknown (sic NJ) reason.

I: "'What is with all the heavy traffic?!!?'" in expasperation.
Ross: "'Don't ask me, I don't know. It's like you asking a goldfish to build a bonfire.'"

Tonight while watching the Young Stars NHL hockey game one announcer said:
"The hockey gods have flowing robes, some of them are missing teeth, but they still have power."

The U. S. Attorney General, as you may or may not know, has said:
“There is no expressed grant of habeas in the Constitution; there’s a prohibition against taking it away,” Gonzales said.
Here is a link to slashdot and to the article from the Baltimore Chronicle.

The other night, when Karen did not come back for dinner, we had a guys night. Guys night often involved mac and cheese (frozen or made by dad), hot dogs (usually in hot dog blankets, not rolls), or some other "mama is not here let's eat good but not so good food" food. Hot dogs blankets are tortillas, get flour not corn. We also do things like, Remember our manners because mama is not her, spelling tests, math tests, talk about school, talk about xbox, talk about hockey, and eat. I spend a lot of time saying things like: "no more talking, eat your dinner", "eat your dinner", and "eat your dinner". Actually that part is like a dinner with Karen.
This evening we are trying to help Ross prepare for an upcoming spelling test:
I: Ross spell house.
R: Hoeus.
I: Ross spell howse. (you try the phonetic pronounciation)
R: hose.. no heous...
I: Ross spell mouse.
R: M O U S E
I: Spell Louse
R: L O U S E
I: Spell grouse
R: G R O U S E
I: Spell spouse (the previous 2 he had never seen or heard, to my knowledge. 1st try not bad)
R: S P O U S E ... Daddy tell me to spell sprouse... tell me to spell sprouse.
I: Ok, Ross spell sprouse. (Ok, I've never heard the word but according to Dictionary.com nevermind it's not really a word. back to the conversation.)
- Sprouse illicits some giggles from both boys and a very strange look from me.
back to the word we were working on now that the last exercise went so well.
I: Ross spell each.
R: ech
I: Ross spell peach. (Ross is notorious for his fruit lovingness, so I figured pick a fruit that's close.)
R: peeeech
I: Ross spell peach
R: pe.
Lars interrupting: It rhymes with apricot.

At this point all hope was lost and Lars fell out his chair laughing after I became so bamboozled by this statement well,
Ok, you can close your mouth now. It's not true peach does not rhyme with apricot.
At the time I couldn't think of a single thing that did either. For the past 2 weeks this has been a running joke with Lars whenever anyone tries to spell something Lars says "It rhymees with apricot."

Things I feel you might need to know

If you play hockey and have compression pants, it's best to turn them inside out before throwing them in the washer. This way the velcro that holds up your socks doesn't grab all your other clothing and rip it to shreds.


I did some more modding of the template, if you change your browser size the proportions will remain the same.

Procrastination or Why I am not organized

So I was responding to a college roommates email in which I mentioned I have this website with pictures of the kids playing hockey. This is only of interested because her husband and sons all play. When I mentioned this it occurred to me that I had not posted any new pictures and there are some good ones of Ross in his goalie gear for the first time.
So I opened my photo library program (iphoto, if you must know) and discovered 12,000 pictures in one library and multiple duplicates. So after 2 hours of sorting, a quick trip to the library and then getting the boys off the bus I still haven't finished the email.

And the hutch thing is here... I have nowhere to put it....

(grammatically incorrect, poetically correct)

Procrastination .. or reasons I don't sleep

Instead of SketchUp'ing the changes we want to make to the house, all I have so far is measurements but I am getting there, I have discovered:

1) The webcams over looking Main Street where I spent my teenage years
Webcam1
Webcam2

2) convinced someone to come build a new bunk bed for the boys.
3) Sent email to people.
4) Drunk a glass of wine.
5) IM'd more people (GTALK kasperectomy - like that took brain power)

6) Decided to add these links to /. (slashdot.org) stories about global warming
Positive - New Islands I love the name: Uunartoq Qeqertoq: the warming island
Negative - Lost Islands, what a Christmas present
7) The LA Kings, now have an NHL first - a Japanese goalie. Not a great start but it's a tough job.

8) blogged

9) watched Boston Legal.

Now I have to get back to what I should have been doing all this time.

Why do I even bother no one reads this and if they do I wonder why?

NHL, here's my offering for your re-scheduling.

The NHL is looking for a way to revamp their schedule, to reorganize and to make the league more marketable to a wider audience. This means finding a way to compete with Basketball, Football and Baseball.

One of their most widely publicized revampings includes moving teams, changing from 3 divisions per conferece to 2, and scheduling all teams to play each other at least once. The only reason I can see for changing the number of divisions is to create space for 2 new teams. Hey, I like expansion but I don't think we are there yet. And 3 divisions allows for greater expansion than 2 divisions.

So here's my idea.

1: Rename the Conferences: East and West to Prince of Wales and Clarence Campbell, of course these names could be updated but East/West is just so.... boring.
2: Rename the Divisions: of course we'll need 2 new ones, but maybe Howe and Gretzky .
I liked the historical flavor that the Adam, Patrick, Smythe and Norris divisions gave the game. It says "Hey look at all the great players we had and look at what they did for the sport."

3: Shorten the season from 82 to 80.
4: The All-Star break gets 5 days. 2 for travel, 1 for Skills and Young Stars Game, 1 for All-Star Game, 1 for travel back home.
5: The All-Star break comes as close to the mid-point of the season as possible. Most teams have played 40 games.
6: Back-to-back games only for home stands. i.e. Home teams can play back-to-back, facing either the same or different opponents in back-to-back stretches.
7: Travel schedules look like this: Game - 1 day to travel - Game. So Monday - Game, Tuesday - Travel, Wednesday - Game. Unless crossing multiple time zones then maybe an extra day for Rest. M - Game, T- Travel, W- rest, Th -game. This plays well with a home team back-to-back.
Anaheim goes to Buffalo, who doesn't want to see that this year?!?!, Plays 2 games in two nights and moves on to NJ. Anaheim schedule. Monday - Game, Tuesday to Buffalo, Wednesday Rest and practice, Thursday Game, Friday Game, Saturday travel to NJ, Sunday Game.
8: All teams play each other twice. 29 teams x 2 = 58 games. Should allow for Home games for each team.
9: All teams plays all teams in their conference an additional game: 14 games. Allows for uneven number of conference games for tie-breakers in standings for playoffs.
10: All teams play all teams in their division two additional games: 8 games. Allows for uneven number of games for tie-breakers for division standings. Previous years playoff standings can determine the home team for the 5th game.
11: Total games: 58 + 14 + 8 = 80.