Super Bowl Sunday

Who cares? The Patriots aren't there (never let it be said that we are not provincial), and fantasy football is over, so now I have to watch with only mild interest because I'm expected to know something about the over-hyped ads. Maybe it's easier to just check out USA Today in a few hours to see what the best ads were.

Charlene and Elizabeth are out shopping for shoes at the moment (it never stops), as this Friday is Elizabeth's school dance (er, "ball"). I think mother is more excited than daughter, but I will be the 6 year old's escort to this affair. Last year's theme was disco; there is apparently no limit to what a daddy won't do for his little girl. Still, as much as I dread the dancing stuff, to see Elizabeth happy fills me with untold joy. I wonder what it will be like when the boyfriends come a'calling. I am already assembling my arsenal.

Now that we are between fantasy football and baseball, I've been taking that 20 minutes or so in the morning while I eat my oatmeal (I hope my heart appreciates that, because the stomach isn't too thrilled) to clean up some financial stuff. Though far from a tycoon, it was time to revisit the wreckage from the 2000-2001 "market correction." Being a tech boy, it was tough to face the music after the tech/dot com bubble burst, but I guess I've healed enough to reacquaint myself with the stockmarket, and besides, I'm not exactly a tycoon (just trying to scrape together enough to pay the oil bill).

Feel free to post something, as I've really got nothing to say, which is probably a good thing.

Happy New Year

Hi Guys:

Think back to when your kids were little and you know what Christmas was for me this year. While I dislike Christmas and its commercialism, cliche though that sentiment is, in particular it bothers me that my kids have so many things, and so many of the same kind of things. I often feel at odds with Charlene, if not the entire free world, about this. It's bad enough that those weaselly marketers have figured out how to advertise and package every toy to produce a predictable Pavlovian response in my kids, but then my wife conditions them with "rewards," albeit small ones, every time they go out shopping (which seems to be more days than not). And the irony is, that when I play with them, which is a great deal and I now have the bad back to prove it, we hardly use any of that stuff. When Brindle was alive, she got an immense amount of my attention and affection, but her "toys" were rocks (literally), and she taught me that what dogs and kids really want is your time and love. Now, I bought the Playstation and computers, and I don't have too big a problem with Barbie and Transformers, but how much of this stuff do they need? It is to the point where their rooms are so crammed with stuff that it is tough to move around. Maybe I'm just aggravated because it took me over two hours to put together the latest Hot Wheels track (32 pages of bad instructions!).

On the positive side, this was my "off year" regarding visiting the in-laws, whom I actually get along with fine. We have an agreement that while Charlene can visit her family in San Diego whenever she wants, which is usually once or twice a year and certainly at Christmas, I only am obligated to go every other year. This is my off year, so that means that I get a "vacation" (a week or so after XMas) where I finally get a chance to sleep (When the family is here, I generally get 5 hours or so, though rarely without interuption) and catch up (a little bit) on various tasks. I did get a chance to go to my brother's and then cousin's for New Year's Eve and learned that my car (I've had a Prius for a couple of years now) will not engage its gasoline engine when in traction-control mode. Translation: snow and hills don't mix well for that car, but despite a couple of close calls and inconvenience, made it there and back OK.

No New Year's resolutions for me; how 'bout you? I still haven't heard from Kip and Greg, but I'll try to contact Kip and get that technophobe to take a look at this blog. As for Greg, I haven't gotten a response of any kind from him in years; don't know why. I'll try again. While I just invited you guys to join this blog as you're the ones I care about, if you feel like there's anyone you'd like to join, that's fine with me. So feel free to send out invites to others if you like, and if you can't, let me know and I'll do so from this end. In any case, I don't think any of us have the time to post frequently, but my goal is to get a little something up every couple of weeks or so. I look forward to your posts, guys, and wish a Happy New Year to you and yours.

Dave

Welcome aboard, Dean Domenico!

Thanks for jumping on board, Dom. It's good to hear from you in the Great White North. I look forward to your posts (and feel free to put some links on the sidebar if you like). Now that you're a dean, you should have time to log on now and then. I am really happy to learn of your success, and it's certainly well deserved, as you've worked hard (a 25 page vita- cut it out!) and done great. I used to wonder what it would be like seeing those that I may have outperformed (in my own mind) in high school and college whizz by me in their careers and salaries. I've found that while I'm probably still competitive in my own way, it's not that way, and I am genuinely happy to see friends and family succeed (and don't particularly care about the others). And more important than career, you've got a great family (though I personally believe Sue may have married too far down- my best to her and the kids, of course). It actually feels really good to see those I care about doing well. Another sign of advancing age.

We'll See What Happens

Thanks for checking this out. My initial thought is to use this venue as a mechanism to reestablish or increase contact with a few people who have meant a great deal to me but have drifted apart. Maybe this will morph into something else, or just fade into oblivion, but what I envision is a simple way for my old and dear friends to keep in touch regularly. It's impossible to write, visit, or call, it seems, and even tough to email. Rather than simply make this a lazy man's (that would be me) letter to all (which does have some appeal), I hope that this can become a "team" blog, where each post essentially goes to everyone in the group (individual contact options remain, of course), as this would essentially be a message board.

So Rick, Kip, Dom, and Greg, please provide a response regarding your thoughts on this venture. If you think this is stupid, no harm done and it's easy to pull the plug. If you'd like to give it a try, just let me know. I'll need your email (see contact information on side bar if you don't want to give it in a response post), and I'm not sure if you have to register with blogger.com (which takes two minutes and I haven't gotten any spam or had any other problems in doing so). Then I can add you to the "blog team." If you prefer to just read the posts and respond via comments, that's fine too. Or maybe you'd like this to be something else. I hope this can go somewhere, but we'll see what happens.