Happy Wally Wednesday everybody! Yesterday, Madeline brought her dog over, too and it was a big three dog day. Here is Wally with his BFF Stryder the Bulldog and his girlfriend Mobay the Great Dane.

It was much cooler out today than yesterday. Thank god. I didn't have to turn the air conditioning on. I realized yesterday that any money I'm saving on gas by telecommuting will go right into the A/C bill this summer. My work day was light. I put in my 8 hours, then greeted my friend, Dave, who just came into town from Toronto for the week.

I've known Dave for about 11 years now, I guess. His also a television editor, and in fact, he is the person who first introduced me to editing and has taught me a lot about both the editing craft and the technical side of the business. One of the things I like best about Dave is that he's actually more of a tech head about editing and Macs than I am, which is rare, so I always get to learn things from him. Over dinner, he was telling me how he can loop out of his Avid (editing) system and through his iChat so he can screen a cut with a director in another place. I know...most of you just heard "blah blah blah iChat." Take it from me...what he's talking about is a cool thing. We talked about how I might be able to do it with my home system even though I'm missing one of the boxes he has. This led to a visit to Office Max and then the Apple Store for what we thought would be the proper cables. Ultimately, we spent a couple of hours in my office trying unsuccessfully to get it to work. I still think I can do it...I just don't have the time to screw around with it right now. (I get it, I'm a geek).

We were just sitting here in front of the TV watching a rerun of Monk on USA when I saw a memorial type ad for Stanley Kamel who plays Dr. Charles Kroger, Monk's therapist. I didn't realize he had died. Apparently, he had a heart attack on April 8 and died at the age of 65. What a drag. I wonder who they'll cast as Monk's new therapist, because you KNOW Monk can't go without a shrink for long.

Los Angeles has officially gone from comfortably warm spring days with cool nights to Oh My God It's Hot Out. It was in the mid-90s here today, but I see that tomorrow the high is expected to be 82, falling to an anticipated high of 71 by Wednesday. That's right - more than a 20 degree temperature change in two days. What the hell?

My AT&T DSL finally got up and running. And by "up and running" I mean the DSL was finally activated on my phone line. I still had to spend an hour on the phone with tech support this evening to get my computer actually ON the internet. And not half an hour after I got off the phone with them did I realize that my mail program is not connecting to the server. That means another call to tech support. Additionally, I haven't yet had time to set up the other computers in my home to the wireless network, and I'm sure I'm going to have problems with that, too. All in all, this is becoming an extremely long process. All I have to say is this connection better be rock solid and blazing fast.

Wally is still stiff and sore but seems to be moving around a little better this afternoon. Aside from being sore from the long hike because he was out of shape, I think he also may have pulled a muscle when he scrambled to try not to fall down the cliff. Hopefully, he'll be good as new in a couple of days.

An Austrian man has admitted to holding his daughter captive in his basement for 24 years and fathered seven children with her. Of those seven, three were held captive with her in a hidden, windowless room and have never seen sunlight. One child died shortly after birth and was tossed into an incinerator by the father. The remaining three children were raised by the father and the girl's mother and were registered with authorities. I read that the wife thought the daughter had run away, so I'm not sure a) how she never realized there were 4 people being held captive in her own home, and b) how the father accounted for the appearance of the three children. And how did no one in the neighborhood suspect anything when the father added on to the room? The daughter, now 42, had been missing since 1984. For more, read this article. It's disturbing on pretty much every level.

The first game of the women's division Summer League happened Friday night. As I mentioned before, I got moved to a new team and we now have much later game time slots, so I'm not very happy about it. I knew the cherry on top of the cake would be that I wouldn't get to wear my regular jersey number (11). One of the first things I did when I got moved was check the roster of the team I was being moved to and see if they already had a number 11 (they did). While some people could really care less what number they wear, I always feel happier with that number on my back. When I showed up to sign in, there were only two jerseys left hanging there and the one the guy handed me was 11! At first I thought the league had actually done something right to make sure they had the right jersey prepped, but no...the guy told me it was totally coincidental.

The girls on the other team seemed nice enough. I was disappointed to see that their star player, Melissa, who I really like, was no longer playing on the team. Neither was their other goal scorer. (I should mention at this point that this team is the one that won the championships against my old team last season). It became clear rather quickly that I had been moved to the team to be their new scorer. Obviously, someone had not looked at my stats because I don't score a ton of goals - I get a lot of assists. At any rate, at least Madeline was there...we car pool from Pasadena so we're a package deal.

As soon as the game started, I realized the newly reformed red team was severely low on talent. There are some ok players but no one who really stands out. One of the new players had actually never played in a game before and didn't fully understand the offside rule. Our goalie was also not so good...I'm hoping she just had an off game or hasn't played in awhile and will get better. Perhaps the best part of the game was when Madeline, seeing the puck drop in the open in front of her, took off with it at (her) full speed in a breakaway attempt. She shot the puck but it didn't go in. This is probably just as well, since she had been skating the wrong way and had shot on OUR OWN GOALIE. At the period break, our coach took a deep breath and said, "I never thought I'd have to say this, but please try not to shoot on our own goalie." After the game Madeline said to me, "Man...I haven't done that in a long time!" I was like, "In 'a long time'? You mean you've done that before?!" At least she, and everyone else, had a good sense of humor about it.

After his big, dangerous hike yesterday, Wally was very restless during the night. I kept hearing him moving around and this morning, found some vomit on the stairs...all grass, of course, which he had been eating along the trail. I feel horrible because he's limping really badly, and when he went to eat his breakfast, he had to lie down to do it. I know he's really sore, but he's no dummy - I can tell he's totally playing it up, too, the way he limps across the floor, then looks back at you from across the room with his big, sad face, as if to say, "It's ok...I can get the water myself...don't you trouble yourself (limp limp).'"

A friend and I decided to take Wally on a hike up the Sam Merrill trail today so we could see the view from Echo Mountain. Because my hockey game with my new team was at 11:15 last night, we got a late start and it was already pretty hot when we hit the trail. Wally was happy to be out on the trail. We haven't been hiking in a long time and he loves to be off leash.



Here's the view from high up on the trail. If there wasn't so much smog, you could see all the way to the ocean from Pasadena up there.



Hello technology!



The trail we were on is a pretty steep hike up a bunch of switchbacks, and Wally soon started heading for the shade every chance he could get.



Eventually, despite the many water and rest breaks we took, he started to burrow under plants and in crevasses looking for shade. I should have heeded his warnings and turned around to head back to the car but I wanted to try to reach the summit.



Because of this, we ultimately came across him on the trail burrowed in the shade under a bush. Unfortunately for him, the bush he chose was on the cliff side of the trail and when we walked up, he moved and began to fall down the mountain! He fell about 10 feet backward then managed to stop himself (thankfully - it would have been hard to get to him if he had fallen much farther). My friend, John, scrambled down the incline through the brush and branches to rescue him.


Wally is a smart dog. Once he came to a stop, he stayed put and let John come down to him. John then grabbed him buy his back and the scruff of his neck and hauled upwards where I grabbed Wally and pulled him up onto the trail. And that was pretty much it for the hike.

Once Wally got a cool bath, some food, and some nap time he seemed no worse for the wear. But for a moment there on the trail, I thought I was going to lose my dog. Lucky for me, I had someone with me to help.

My new hockey team is a whole other blog entry. Wait 'till you hear what Madeline did!

Someone sent me an e-mail today regarding this horrible atrocity. It actually happened in 2007 so maybe you have already heard about it, but I hadn't. In August, a Costa Rican artist named Guillermo Vargas (also known as "Habacuc") hunted a stray dog, tied it with a short length of cord to one of the walls of the gallery he was showing at in Nicaragua, and proceeded to let the dog suffer from thirst and starvation. He called his "exhibit" "You are what you read." Vargas claims the dog was already emaciated when he captured it and that it was only tied up for three hours. He also claims to have fed the dog himself. Either way, his use of an animal as "art," considering the condition the dog was in, is horrifying. There are photos on the web but I won't repost them here.

According to the e-mail I received, Vargas would be representing Costa Rica at the Central American Biennial later this year to recreate this particular piece of art. However, further research on the internet states he will be showing another piece there. If you'd like to sign a petition to urge the people who run the Biennial to uninvite Vargas, click here.

Summer season for the women's league at TSC starts tomorrow night. In regular TSC hockey department fashion, we just got the schedule two days ago and were just notified last night what teams we'll be playing on this season. Yes...that's right - in the women's league, the hockey department reserves the right to move players around from team to team to keep parity within the league. And even though I'm told that this past season was the most even season ever between the teams, I was notified I'll now be playing on another team along with another player from our team, and one other former team member has been placed on yet another team. This sucks on several levels, not only because I will no longer be able to play with the team full of women I have made friends with over the past year. I also probably won't be able to get my regular jersey number and I'm a little touchy about that. Finally, the league has changed the game times. Last season, our times ranged from 7:30pm to 10:45pm. This season, other than the occasional 9:30pm game, ALL of our games start at either 11:00 or 11:15. There is another division that plays on the same night, but I don't understand why ALL of the game time slots can't be divided equally (or more evenly) between BOTH divisions. My only thought is that this would be far too complex of a task for the meager minds that run the department. I've grown to enjoy playing in the women's league, but after this season, I may just try to get on another team at another rink (co-ed).

I was able to get back to the kickboxing gym today for the first time in a couple of months. It felt good to get a workout off the ice, but I did feel like I might die from being so out of shape. With the new work schedule and working from home, I'm hoping to be able to get back there much more often in the near future.

Boy am I glad I redid my office last summer. Now it's nice and homey to work in.


However, I never finished putting stuff back up or away when I did the refacing, so if you look behind me, it looks like a bomb went off.


But, if I look down, I see this. Happy Wally Wednesday!

First of all, let me just say how awesome working at home is. I'm don't think I will ever wear pants again.

The other day at work, a co-worker was commenting on how adorable Labrador puppies are and how she wished puppies would stay small forever. I said I thought it would be awesome if there was a miniature breed of Labradors like there are with other breeds...a lab that would still be puppy sized in it's full grown form. A few hours later, I received a gleeful e-mail from her with the following link - an online ad for a breeder in SoCal making mini Labs. From the ad "Yellow male. Looks totally Lab, but in a smaller package. And a much more mellow personality. Loves to play ball and is super intelligent. This is a hybrid of Mini Labbe and Comfort Labbe, hence F2 heading. Bred to look like Labradors, but much, much smaller and easier to care for. Approximate adult size is 20 pounds; some are smaller."

First, I'd like to point out that I've never heard of a Mini Labbe or a Comfort Labbe (must do more research. Are they from Old England? What's up with the spelling?). Secondly, I have to ask...how much mellower of a personality can you get than your run of the mill Lab? How much lethargic can an animal get? Either way, I'm tempted to go look at one and see what the adults look like. A 20 lb. Labrador. How cool is that?

I'll leave you with this photo of a mini chocolate Lab.

As you've noticed, my schedule has changed...I'm now on that regular person Monday through Friday week which I am sooo happy about. (Finally! Weekends off!) Well, as of tomorrow, I will also be working from home. Right now, I'm waiting for my media to get copied so I can take my laptop and drive home but it may not be done on time. Then, off to home to set up all my new equipment. From now on, it will be Wally and I chilling at home in the office editing (well, Wally will be chilling, I will be editing). No more dogwalkers (yay for Wally and my checkbook!) and no more working in a freezing cold editing bay with no windows. Also, no commute, so I can ride the scooter around town locally and save a ton of gas.

I did some work at home when I was editing on BL and I really enjoyed it so I'm fairly sure I can keep on task. In fact, I get quite distracted at work so they'll probably get a lot more work out of me, in all honesty. I'd say I might get lonely, but I tend to stick to myself here at the office anyway. Not that I won't miss some of the cool people I work with, but we can still come around for lunch. I'm looking forward to seeing if I enjoy my added free time with no drive time. At least I'll get some use out of that home office I gave a makeover to over the summer!

We played our first game in our new division tonight. Summer League is officially in session. The game itself was generally quicker and more on par with the top teams in our previous divisions. It was nice to play in a more competitive game where it wasn't obvious we'd win by several goals. After playing in the old division for several seasons, it will also be nice to play against different teams and different people. We held our own, then took a quick three goal lead in the second. They eventually caught up and tied the game at 4-4 with a little over three minutes left in the 3rd. We scored again and held the lead to win the game. Not a bad start to a new season in a different division.

I've started working Monday through Friday now but had to make up a day today because I took a sick day during the week. Not only do I now have weekends off, I no longer have hockey on Saturday nights. What on earth will I do with myself? Wally and I need to sit down and make a list of weekend activities we haven't done for the past 9 months and run with it.

My friend, Dean, and I grabbed dinner this evening then decided to watch the only movie I had around the house from Netflix which was Southland Tales. Another friend had told me about the movie saying it was hard to understand, but when she told me it had been done by the same guy who wrote and directed Donnie Darko, I knew I'd have to check it out. I actually really like Donnie Darko, and she mentioned this had a similar space-time continuum tale.

I have to tell you, the first thing that concerned me about this film was that it starred The Rock and Justin Timberlake. I will say right now, Timberlake is NOT part of the problem of this film, which I will now refer to as the two hours I will never, ever get back. I don't even know where I would begin to tell you what this film was about. It had so many intersecting characters and story lines I felt that I needed to watch it again with a schematic or a flow chart, or at least some Cliff Notes. I can't even say the movie was unwatchable. In fact, I felt glued to the set waiting for a moment of clarity that would never arrive. The cast list is endless, from Wallace Shawn to John Larroquette, Seann William Scott, Cheri Oteri and many other recognizable names. I have to assume by the completely over the top performances that the film was intended to be a satire but I'm not quite sure of what because it just wasn't that clear.

I'll tell you, I don't know the first thing about this film or what the director intended it to be about. If anyone out there knows, let me know...and be sure to break it down sloooowly so I can follow this time.

It's Friday night with no hockey game and I even have tomorrow off. I hardly know what to do with myself. And since my other hockey team has moved up a division we no longer play Saturday nights - we play Sundays. I'm going to have to start think of something interesting to do with my time.

You might remember this post from about 5 weeks ago when I was having problems getting my DSL activated. That was when they told me the line wasn't working and the engineers would get to it when they got to it. Now that I'm nearing the point where I actually need the line to be active, I called again to find out "...(blah blah blah)...still not working...(blah blah)...fibre...(blah blah) May 19." What the hell?

Oh, well. I'm still going to try to enjoy my weekend. Right now, Wally and I are curling up on the couch to watch Juno.

Madeline forwarded me a Wall Street Journal article about the blog Dooce earlier this week, and I finally had the time to look at it today. At first I couldn't figure out why she sent me a link about a story of a stay at home mom who has turned blogging into a profession. Then I realized it was the blog of Heather Armstrong. You may not recognize her name, but you may remember her as the woman fired from her web designing job a couple of years ago because of things she wrote about her job on her blog. The WSJ said Dooce is listed at #59 of the top 100 blogs. In contrast to your run of the mill stay at home mom blog, WSJ describes Dooce as "irreverent, occasionally profane and often hilarious." Of course, I had to investigate.

Right off the bat, Armstrong described herself: "I am a Stay at Home Mom (SAHM) or a Shit Ass Ho Motherfucker. I do both equally well." How can you not appreciate that? While I haven't spent a ton of time (yet) digging into her archives, I did find much amusement in her recent blogs relating to a road trip with a friend and discovering the 80s channel on the satellite radio, resulting in the following conversation with she and her friend:

Carol: "Who is this? Culture Club? Is that the one with Boy George?"

Armstrong: "I'll never forget the first time I saw the cover for this album, I remember thinking how much I loved her eyebrows. And my friend was all, umm, that's not a her."

Carol: "Do you hear these lyrics? It's a bunch of gibberish."

Armstrong: "Carol, Culture Club was never supposed to make sense."

Carol: "I just don't understand any of it."

Armstrong: "What don't you understand about 'red gold and green..red gold and greeeeen'?"

Carol: "Oohhhhhh. I thought he was saying, 'Wear gold and green.'"

Armstrong: "Wear gold and green? Are you serious?"

Carol: "Maybe he's singing about the Green Bay Packers."

Armstrong: "Oh my god. Boy George did not write a song about the Green Bay Packers."

Carol: "And he wants to make sure everyone is ready for game day."

Armstrong: "You have me convinced."

This along with the entry about seeing Rick Springfield in the real world and not being able to stop herself from singing "Jessie's Girl" to herself while standing two feet away from him makes me think I will thoroughly enjoy her blog in the future. I assume everyone on the internet is already familiar with her blog, but if you are as out of touch as I am and this is new to you, enjoy!

I forgot it was Wednesday again. Now that I'm back working a Monday to Friday shift, hopefully that won't happen anymore! Here's Wally from the weekend. Sean in the Production Office has him trained to put down a blanket for him on the floor. Happy Wally Wednesday everyone!

"My Beautiful Mommy," a children's book due out this Mother's Day, walks small children through the story of how mommy can get "even prettier" with the help of plastic surgery. The book was written by Michael Salzhauer, a board certified plastic surgeon in Bal Harbor, FL to help parents explain to their children why they are undergoing plastic surgery. The book is aimed at children aged 4-7 and features Dr. Michael (a muscle-bound superhero type) and a young girl whose mother gets a tummy tuck, breast implants, and a nose job. In the book, the mother explains to the girl, "You see, as I got older, my body stretched and I couldn't fit into my clothes anymore. Dr. Michael is going to help fix that and make me feel better." Mom then comes home looking like a slightly bruised Barbie doll with demure bandages on her nose and around her waist.


Um...where to start? I guess I can see the purpose of the book given the amount of plastic surgery people are undergoing these days. The part I don't get is explaining away unnecessary surgery to children just because it makes mommy "feel better." Doesn't this seem like it would lead to even more body issues with young girls? I'm not crazy, right?

I was only awake about 6 hours yesterday. I spent the rest of the time sleeping. I felt horrible when I went to bed last night but much better when I woke up around 10 this morning. In fact, I felt so good I told the office I would try to come in around noon to work a half day. I took some cold pills and ate something, and right around the time I was supposed to leave for the office, I started to feel really sleepy. I couldn't figure out why until I realized I had accidentally taken the night time cold pills, not the day time ones. I still made my way in to work and managed to get a complete half day in which will make it easier to make up the time. However, since I've been here, I've started to feel horrible again. I'm looking forward to sleeping a long time tonight.

Oh, and my women's team lost 4-0 in the championship game last night because everyone was out sick. So much for two cups.

Wow, am I sick today. I tried to go into work and was sent back home so everyone else in the office wouldn't get sick. I was looking forward to my first weekend off, but it looks like I'll be working at least one of those days as a makeup day. My women's team has their 2nd game of the championship round tonight but there's no way I can go play. In fact, half our team is sick and won't be able to play. I hate to say it, but it will be a miracle if the remaining players win the game tonight...unless the other team is having the same problems with illness.

OK...time to take some more Day Quil pills (I think they're really placebos) and get some more rest.

Woo-hoo! We won our game last night and are the official champions of the Adult Bronze B division at Toyota Sports Center for Winter league 2007/2008. The game would have actually been pretty boring to watch because we shut them out 7-0. At one point in the game, one of the refs came over to our bench and asked how it was possible that we had lost a single game to this team. I think that's when I knew we had already won. Their highest scorer, also the top scorer in the league, averages over 3 points per game, but we totally shut him down to zero points during the first two games of the series. The reason I say only two games is because he took a slap shot to the face in the 2nd game (off his own player), which rendered him unable to play in the final game. We scored two goals in the 1st and only one in the second period. A 3-0 game is still pretty close in hockey and we wanted to widen the gap. Four unanswered goals in the third period helped, but I think my favorite part of the game was when two of the other teams players nearly came to blows on their own bench. Thanks to Kings Fan for staying away from the game, since he jinxed us last season. Unfortunately, he will no longer be allowed to attend any championship games we play in.


I'm at work today, but my schedule is finally changing and I this should be the last weekend I'll be working. After over 9 months, I'm ecstatic to finally have some weekends off. I'll also have a couple of weeks off from hockey games coming up, so it will be nice to sit back and enjoy a Friday or Saturday night.

On the down side, I've come down sick and have totally lost my voice. I can't speak above a whisper. But because I took a bunch of days off last week, I can't exactly take any sick time right now. Though it's annoying to be at work today, I'm pretty much well enough to work, albeit silently.

The video is a little long, but Wally could definitely use one of these.



My womens team lost the first game of our championship series last night in overtime. Yeah, that hurt a little. Truthfully, we were playing horrible D all the way around and not breaking out well offensively. Hopefully, we will do better in our second game on Monday and tie up the series. Tonight, my co-ed team goes for the cup in the final game of our championship series. Wish us luck! (again...)

Hey, everyone! Happy Friday! Unless it's not your Friday. Like me - it's my Monday, so it's sort of sucked. But for everyone else, enjoy your weekend!!

I watched a movie on DVD yesterday. I hadn't done that in awhile. It's a movie I remember seeing promos for and being interested in, but I don't remember hearing much buzz about it while it was out in the theaters. It's called August Rush, and if you like warm fuzzy movies, you should see it, especially if you enjoy a good soundtrack. August Rush tells the story of young Evan Taylor, an orphan, who desperately wants to find his birth parents. (Taylor is played by Freddie Highmore, who you may recognize from both Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Golden Compass). He hears music in everything in the world, and he feels if he could just play music, somehow his parents would hear it and come find him. Thus begins his journey away from the Home for Boys where he lives and out into the wilds of New York City where he meets Wizard (Robin Williams), a lifelong street musician. Wizard discovers Evan's musical prodigy abilities and sees dollar signs, giving Evan his new name of August Rush. The film also starts Keri Russell and Jonathan Rhys Meyers. I honestly found myself enjoying the movie more than I thought I would and highly recommend it.

Tonight: Game 1 in a best of 3 series for the Women's League Championship
Tomorrow: The final game of the Co-Ed Division Championship

I've been off all week which means I keep forgetting what day it is. Which, of course, means I forgot yesterday was Wally Wednesday. No one reminded me!! This is one of my favorite pictures from when he was about 1-2 and used to go to Doggie Daycare a couple of times a week. It looks like all the humans are gone and dogs rule the planet.

I've done basically nothing of interest today other than go out to dinner with some friends that I hadn't seen in a very long time. It's always good to catch up with people. I also managed to make it over to the hospital to visit my neighbors, Kat and Jeff and new baby boy Wesley Roberts. I now have photos to share.

Here's daddy Jeff and little Wesley:


Big sister Sofie and little brother Wesley:


And finally, mommy Kat, Wesley, and Sofie. Mom and baby should be home by the end of the week. That little boy is cute! (But...I still prefer Labradors. Sorry, guys).

I've mentioned many times before about my neighbors and good friends, the Roberts', Jeff, Katherine and Sofie. Here's an old photo of Sofie with Wally when she was...ooh...maybe a year or just over a year old. Well, congratulations to the Roberts'. As of this morning they have a new addition to their family, Harper Wesley Roberts, who came out at 8 lbs something oz (I can't remember). I think Wally is looking forward to having a little boy to throw tennis balls for him.


Not only did we win our women's playoff game last night, we actually sort of killed them. It was a tight, no scoring game until the end of the first period. We then scored twice in the second, once more in the 3rd and they got a fluke goal in to make the score 3-1. We then finished off by scoring once more before the end of the game. I must say, I played a great game last night. Not scoring wise, though I did have three points (one goal and two assists), but just playing all around. It was a fun game, but our championship series is going to be a hard run for the cup. Our first championship round game is this Friday night, and for anyone interested, our final "win it or go home" championship game in co-ed is Saturday night at 9:30pm at the Toyota Sports Center.

Wally and I haven't done much today. I drove down to Century City for a doctor's appointment (seriously need to find doctors closer to home), came back and ran some errands and caught up with some shows on my DVR. Going out to dinner with a friend tonight, and that should be it. I hope everyone else is enjoying their mid-week!

It was a beautiful day outside today for riding the scooter. I took it out to run quite a few errands and loved it. I had to fill up the gas tank because it was near empty and it only cost me $4. I wish I could drive it all the time, but it's too far to take surface streets all the way to work. Also, I need to learn how to take a corner without braking into it all the time. I supposed it's time for the motorcycle class.

Tonight is the playoff game for my women's team. Since there are only 5 teams in the women's division, all but 1 team made the playoffs. If we win, we go on to the championship round, just like with the men's league. Would be nice to have both teams go into (and win) the championship. I'd be happy for just one of us to win, though. Wish me luck!

Sorry I missed a day there. I had a bit of a personal emergency and had to leave town unexpectedly. I was too busy to sit down and blog until right now. Don't worry - I'm fine, everything is fine. I just had a friend get really, really sick. Even though the date on this reads Monday the 7th, I'm considering it still the 6th.

The only real news I have is that my team won the 2nd game of the best of three Championship series which puts us at 1-1 for the series. The final game will be this coming Saturday and the team still standing at the end takes home the cup. Err...gets to touch the cup for 5 minutes before the rink takes it back and puts it in a closet. I missed the game but am told we came out firing on all engines. The final score was 7-1 (our lucky 7 goals, of course). Also, apparently the other team's ringer got hit in the face with a slapshot from one of his OWN players in the last minute of the game. The guy didn't have a face mask on either. All I can say is OUCH! I hear he's ok, though, which is good. We'll see how well he's doing next Saturday.

I don't have much going on this Friday, other than sitting in front of the TV watching other teams racing for playoff spots in the race for the Stanley Cup. It's all very exciting except that the Kings will soon be done. This is a good thing, for this season. I've gotten to the point where it's too painful to watch them. So I tried to adopt the Vancouver Canucks in the middle of the season, and last night they lost their chance to get into the playoffs (I hope this isn't because I adopted them). Now I have no team to root for. Does anyone have any suggestions? (And I swear to god, you'd better not say The Ducks).

I woke up this morning with no headache. Yay! I also had the day off, so I slept late and cuddled with Wally - he can make it so hard to get out of bed sometimes!

I've been having problems with my new MacBook Pro of late and finally had the time to visit the "Genius" bar at the Apple store to have a tech look at it. (Don't get me started on the whole thing about having to call them geniuses). At any rate, the tech determined that my laptop needs to be completely replaced. If I had bought a standard laptop they could have replaced it on the spot, but because I had them put a special hard drive in it (for editing video) when I ordered it online, I was told to call Apple's hotline and arrange for a replacement. Luckily, everything went as planned. It's so much easier to love Apple than it is to love stupid Samsung or AT&T. I just need to FedEx this one in and get a new one, hopefully within a week.

I'm now ready to sit back, relax, and watch some bad TV...followed by some reading (my new book, Dharma Punx is great), then bed and back to work tomorrow.

A day off...slept in, played with dog, payed bills. Then I went into Old Town and just hung out and did some shopping for a few hours. It's been ages since I've been able to do that and I really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, I started to get a headache in the afternoon which has turned into yet another incarnation of the Worst Headache Ever. I've been laying in bed for the past few hours with a pillow over my head. Though I still don't feel great, I definitely feel much much better.

I had to dig deep for the weekly Wally photo. I really need to spend more time with my dog, obviously, because I have no recent photos of him. Here is his, exhausted, during a few days where my neighbors baby sat him (he had a sleep over with Stryder the bulldog). Even sleepy and tired, my retriever still has his eye on the prize.

While most of my hockey energy has been spent playing with my co-ed team (currently in the championships for the 4th straight season), my women's team has snuck up into the playoffs as well. The women's team, for me, has always been the team about having fun. I pay little attention to when we win or lose or what place we're in. As it turns out, we seem to have finished the regular season in 2nd place and will move on to the post season in that division as well. Of course, there are only 5 teams in the women's division, and 4 teams make it to the post season, so it's pretty easy to get there. We played our last regular season game last night ending on a 4 game winning streak.

Graffiti I saw scrawled on the locker room wall in pencil the other night before our game:


They keep those rooms pretty clean and I was surprised to see it on the wall. However, it seemed fitting since we won that game. Afterward, women's hockey superstar Cammi Granato came down to have her photo taken with us. She was in the building promoting her hockey clothing line for women.