• dude, i’ll hit you up with a tip next time.  that broad just grabbed my wife’s tit and it’s definitely time to bail.
• my boy was ten pounds at birth and once he was crowning, he just shot out.  his face was all black and blue, and his eyes were like 100%  bloodshot.  when they saw him in the nursery all my friends could pick him right out – “he looks just like you!”
• my wife asked me what color her eyes were because she said i’m always staring at her boobs.  man, i married a stripper.  i didn’t even know she HAD eyes!
• (someone asked this pretty young girl what she did for a living, and instead of saying she was a pet groomer . . . )  “i cut hair, and every now and then I shave a pussy.” 

on the Flyers Front . . .

what a run! 

• Briere still needs to learn to play D
• Leighton gave it his all, but he’s really not that good, and so soft stuff gets in.
• Hartnell woke up.  he played like absolute crap all year, and then it’s like he took a magic pill and played like a man in the playoffs
• the D is still shaky with the puck.  at one point in the final game they started that hand grenade hockey, which makes me scream.  they were out of earshot, so i don’t think it did any good.

now we’ve lost 6 Cup Finals in a row.   

With my discovery of the World Junior tourney at New Year’s, the Olympics, and a deep run by the Flyers – this has been an incredible season!!  at least the kids beat the Canadien kids for the Junior’s title.  oh, hershey is tied 2-2 in the AHL finals v Texas.  all in all with the last East reps in the Cup finals being the ‘guins, the ‘guins, and the Flyers, and the Bears going back to back in the AHL finals, it’s a pretty good time to be a hockey fan in Penna.

of course almost all the players are imported, but what can you do?  kids here are brought up to play football and baseball – rinks are not commonplace, fields and backstops are.  so be it.

been locked in the studio . . .

of my own doing.  been mixing blues band tracks practically every chance i got recently.  still not finished. 

rock band practice on friday, blues gig saturday – plenty of banging going on. 

time to go grab the mail . . .

it wasn’t the fedEx guy.  it was a single policeman.  stocky fellow, musta been a weightlifter in his day.  my very first thought was . . . “this could be ANYTHING”. 

ok, checklist:

> delayed noise complaint?  makes no sense

> where’s my kid?  is he in the back of the cruiser? 

and then i actually look behind the cop for my kid. 

no kids anywhere on scene.  cool. 

turns out the neighbor’s alarm went off, and he wanted to know if i had her cell number so he could wrap up the call.   ”the house is secure” he says.  hehe.  read: “this was a waste of time, but i’m taking lunch while i’m out this way”.

the game was played at a very high level, with a high level of intensity.  it took me two games to get my bearings.  i think i ended up with a -3 for the tourney.  and i think i led the team in +/-  oh well, gotta start somewhere

Poker: it’s been that long that i just noticed that Stoxpoker and CR are the same now.  and i pulled the subscription to CR ’cause i wasn’t using it.  the Stoxpoker video library is getting assimilated, and it’s seems to have an uncertain outcome as far as what vids make the new library and what ones don’t, blah, blah, blah.  i only checked because i thought i’d pick up where i left off. 

my DC account has been active, and unused since the beginning of the year.  the big “duh” is simply to pick up over there.  i feel the need to watch some vids and go through some forums before i sit down at a table again, that’s for sure.  and after this long of a layoff, it very may well be starting over. 

i know that i’m feeling a draw to the game for the first time in forever.  and i don’t think in a bad way.  don’t be surprised if i start posting about the game again, and it all reads like kindergarten level understanding of NLHE. 

DRUMS: rock bnad has a benefit gig – Relay for Life – this friday night, at 12:30 am.  we’re the last band to perform for the evening, at the high school stadium.  haven’t headlined a stadium show before.  lol.  will probably have a quick practice earlier that night. 

have blues band practice tonight.  will set the tape recorder in motion for that, and i expect some interesting results.  blues band gig next saturday.

FLYERS: have undergone a complete transformation, except maybe Pronger and Gagne, and perhaps Carcillo.  coburn and carle are no longer battling for the title of  “human turnover machine”, Giroux has stopped performing that one extra fancy move where he turns it over in the neutral zone and it ends up in our net.  briere is scoring goals – although his D is spotty.

it’s as though they finally get it.  as a result, we’re two games away from a spot in the Stanley Cup Championship. 

ok, off to face the day while the caffeine is working.

Fire:  that corner store that gram used to send me to on my bike, burned down last week.  here’s the vid . . .

there’s a backdraft at like 5:55 or so that apparently happens when the kitchen windows blow out in the back, and the fire gets a nice rush of oxygen.  quite dramatic, and terribly dangerous. 

and to think, at 3:35 AM i get pissed if the dog wants out.  firefighters get woken up for a far more important task. 

this is all one block from the bar.  my parent’s house was four doors up from this.  no one was hospitalized, everyone lived.

there’s a reason to support the local fire company.  over 100 emergency personel  were involved in this fight.  we opened the doors to give them water, soda, ice, and a place to piss and catch their breath.  no one involved gets paid to tackle this.  this isn’t manning a telephone asking for a donation, it’s not banging on the drums for a two dollar donation – it’s front line volunteer work.  god bless’em. 

my mom told me that the scariest moment was when every emergency vehicle blew their air horns at the same time, all dozen plus of them.  that’s the signal that a structural collapse is eminent, and any firefighter in the building SHOULD GET OUT NOW!!!  people came flying out of every part of the buildings, windows, doors, front and back.  and then the 2nd story collapses onto the first. 

Hockey: ends up that i’m staying with the goalie at his brother’s house, instead of a hotel room.  hehe, an adventure it is! 

i had expected i’d be centering either the second or third lines.  then a discussion about the power play came up, and our big gun from the point wanted me to be down low with him on that team.  so, i get to center the first power play unit.  that, makes me happy. and frankly, it’s a good fit.  we have the right men for the jobs on that team.

turns out i’m centering the top line, not the second or third.  that we’ll have to see about.  i have no fear in putting my stick skills up against anyone on planet earth.  but you don’t have to look far to find someone that i just can’t keep up with.  hopefully i’ll be able to see the plays develop more quickly and just outposition the opposing center, so i don’t have to outrun him.

i spent some time reviewing a coaching manual written by one of the New Jersey Devils assistant coaches from their cup years.  on sunday, i did a shift on D on a penalty kill drill, just telling the center to guide the play to the outsides . . .  into a waiting defensemen.  you can just watch as someone waltzes into a trap.  almost made me chuckle.  err, actually it did make me chuckle. 

gotta, gotta, gotta get  in some cardio in these last days!!

NHL – go fly guys.  “not dead yet”.  and Allan Muir likes their chances.  (he has my vote for crappiest haircut, ever – btw). 

Parting Shot:  my baby girl before her prom at the mam mam’s house . . . .

HOCKEY – i used to play in what i affectionately referred to as the “local geriatric league”.   it was a close quarters game where positioning, stick handling, and shooting skills were the difference makers.  there were young guys who did things like p90X for shits and giggles, and tougher guys who were in the military machine.  but there were enough old farts, and i’m talking 50+, to balance it all out. 

mind you if you’re 50 and you don’t know where to be, when to be there, and can bring it, you’re not still playing hockey.  so i have  a group of athletes that whose bodies have left them and they’re basically distilled skill sets versus those who have strength and stamina, but less than stellar skill sets.  that’s the game in the geriatric league.  and it’s usually “old guys v young guys” where the geezers win the first two, and lose the third. 

NOW, i’m in this travelling group who has yet to play an officiated game.  it’s five on five on the big court, and we’re taking this untested machine into philadelphia.  that’s the sixth largest city in the U.S.  no sense taking it to like Harrisburg or Scranton first. 

there are three practices (only one of them full) left before we go.  so hopefully i’ll have enough time to bang strategy and coverage responsibility into most people’s heads. 

anyway, i went from  Sunday afternoon three hour workout that’s closeby to this adventure.  it’s certainly a step up.

DRUMS - this thing blew up too.  i’ve been playing with a blues band that was in essence a musical collective for years.  we’ve had players come and go.  the band is whoever showed up that night, and we played whatever songs we could do with the people at hand.  some shows were just us, camping in the woods, playing for ten to thirteen hours in some way, shape, or form. 

now this thing has distilled to a more or less solid lineup of five, and we’ve been playing parties and benefits.  which is cool.  but now there is a desire to venture out into the “paying gig” scene.  so, we played a show last week for a party.  there was a “set list” which is standard fare for a band to have.  but, the blues band never has a set list.  we just wing it.  well, i guess we’re getting civilized, lol.

we have a paying gig lined up for the end of the month.  and they want to “practice” for it.  lol.  it’s a fine idea, but nine years into it and Now we’re going to practice?  it seems so odd to me. 

on the rock front a group of guys i’m jamming with looks like we’re coming together as a group.  we’ll be playing a Relay For Life benefit later this month, so that’s more music to be played.  i haven’t played a rock gig for i think a year and a half at least.  and even that was just a party in a hall we rented.  so an actual set with other bands and someone else running the sound/lights . . . closing in on three years. 

LOL, i guess it is time to get playing again!

 CRUX –  my “goofing around on Friday Nights” looks ready to take off into a band.  my “goofing around on Sunday afternoons” looks ready to take off into a hockey team.  and my “goofing around every six weeks blues thing” looks ready to take off into a band as well.

life just changed again.  maybe it’s waking me up

and now i’m off for a run.  maybe i can make myself puke?  oh, before i go . . .  

Snippets from the Tavern  – you hear the strangest things in there.  one fellow has an elderly mother who wakes in the middle of the night to pee, and then falls asleep on the toilet.  so he wakes in the middle of the night to pee, but its kindof like he gets blocked and has to find a creative way out.  terribly odd, and for me, very amusing situation.  so . . .

Spearsy: “Hey, is it true you pissed in a Mt. Dew bottle last night, and then took a sip of it in the morning?”

Man: “It was can, not a bottle.”

deadpan delivery as well.  i almost pissed myself.  that’s something you just can’t make up.

on the sidelines it becomes apparent that she thought i should have caught up with it, which is fine.  so i tell her “look, i worked sixteen hours, got a 3 and a half hour nap, and now i’m here.  i’m gonna be a step slow today.”

her response?

“i have a pinched nerve and i can’t feel my right leg.  what time do you want me to schedule your pity party?”

i like her. 

we might have a chance to notch a win or two in this thing after all.

i told someone I may follow baseball more intently this year, as i see a couple of nights of bartending in my upcoming summer. so, i may as well pick a western team to follow so i have something to do during the 10-1:30 part of the weekday shift. he advised me against following baseball closely as it seems to eat up a large chunk of his life. when you follow something from behind a bar, you aren’t in danger of being drawn in by the subtleties. they’re lost between filling beers. it’s not the same.

spent friday night with the wife camping. the kids were invited, but said “i can’t see spending all this money on a house if we aren’t going to use it”. so it was me and the mrs. wonderful time. great weather, campfire cooking that worked (yay for experience), the perfect amount of grog, water view of the lake, small heated cabin with electricity.

two things struck me. after five hours, conversation progresses beyond sharing “to do” lists and work stories. and, when the kids aren’t around, you can talk about the kids. it was really important to break through our routine for a while. 

FLYERS – the game on Easter Sunday against the wings I caught bits and pieces of.  i have a feeling that the announcers were saying that the flyers were playing with the passion of a team in danger of missing the playoffs.  i could be wrong.  to me they FINALLY looked like they had some fire under their asses.  but it looked like Every Day Regular Season fire.  that should be standard.  i’m not impressed.  if they make the playoffs, it’s because the NHL is weak.  they are not a playoff caliber team.  if they make it, we either have a miracle transformation or an early exit. 

Pronger is the real deal.  he’s the big off season acquisition, and he’s been doing his part.  superstars skate in on him, realize what they’re up against, and turn back looking for a trailer.  that, makes a difference.  if it weren’t for him, it’d be Worse.

somewhere, someone ought to write an essay pointing out that a SHOT is a Continuation of a play.  it is not by necessity the Culmination of a play.  it is often your DUTY to shoot, knowing full well that your chances of scoring are horrible.  and i’m not talking about taking bad point shots on a power play.  i’m talking about the spineless aversion to shooting that leads to pittsburgh penguins disease – the extra pass that turns the puck over – all while pissing away the momentum that is puck possession combined with players rushing to/standing in front of the net. 

BIG RED – both teams dropped their Sweet 16 games.  that’s ok though.  it’s nice to have gotten that far.  Cornell is not exactly known for it’s athletics.  some success is a ray of sunshine.  the flyers are looking at their goalie, fwiw.

GREASE – my “how to repair small engines” material arrived today.  haven’t gotten to look at it yet, but i’m looking forward to ripping apart my first carberator.  it took forever to arrive, and i have machines that are already in need of some love and attention waiting for me to get to them.

There Ought to Be a Word – i feel as though there should be a word for the process of taking your rifle apart and reassembling it, especially while blindfolded.  i asked every marine and army grunt i could find what the name of that process was.  it went like this . . .

• “hey, did you learn to what-cha-call a rifle in boot camp.  rip it apart, and put it back together with your eyes shut?” 
• “oh yeah.  blindfolded.”
• “what did they call that?  gentlemen, today we learn how to . . . what . . . our rifles?”
• “they didn’t call it anything.”

Ack.  an obvious deficiency in the English language.

Terrorists – i have the new World Almanac as a source for trivia questions.  in it they describe the Molly Maguires as a “terrorist” organization.  that’s kindof like describing Harriet Tubman as a thief because those slaves were someone’s property, bought and paid for. 

i am, without a doubt, a capitalist.  but there is such a thing as oppressive capitalism. 

i drove through a series of coal patch towns on the camping trip, and they were obviously set up to house miners and their families in the same way we house cattle.  it’s a temporary thing, until they die or are broken in the mines.  the coal barons owned the miners homes, they controlled the work, the bosses scraped off the top (a miner might pull out a ton and a half  of coal, and a boss would scrape a half ton for himself and then log the man’s work for the day as One Ton of productivity), they were forced to buy at the company store.  every aspect of their lives was controlled to provide profit to the company.  sooner or later you have to rise up. 

i don’t know.  if someone has the screws to you, and they own the law enforcement (and mind you 130 years later i’m still seeing semi-local law enforcement and judges that are on the books), you’ll have to use your teeth to get out of that situation.  or that’s how i see it.  that terrorist label caught me by surprise, and it was a bit offensive, tbh.

Parting Shot – we didn’t have any rain here.  this is a pict from my buddy’s lower 40, which used to be across the street from me.  used to fly kites with the kids in that field.  now i’m probably three or four miles down the road.  shortly after sunrise. 

then the drummer shows up. she’s about 4’10″, and maybe 100lbs TOPS. facial piercings and most likely tatoos. so, i guess that answers that.

they kick off the first set with a rousing balls out rock number. only, it’s not quite there. it’s not bad, just not the pure adrenaline that i’m wanting (i play the same tune from time to time in rock jams). my gut reaction was “jesus christ, nut up or go home!”. at this point i can’t see the drums, and when i move in closer to the stage i remember that there’s a little pixie playing the kit. and to be honest, she’s banging away. she’s just not doing it like a full grown man, because she’s not full grown, and she’s not a man. once again i think that i might be an ass. but i think i can live with it.

oh well.

played a gig on top of the hill saturday, after the big Guntown parade. one of my barkeeps was at the parade, had a great time. after the parade he said he and his wife tried to get into two different bars, but you couldn’t get into the door. so, he finds a hole-in-the-wall spot off the beaten path and wanders in. they ask him where he’s from, and he tells them “Mt. Carmel”.

barkeep says “we don’t serve people from Mt. Carmel”. dead serious. won’t serve them. and it’s not like he’s part of a group of drunken marines, or ex-football players, or what have you. it’s him and his WIFE. like they’re going to start tearing the place up or something. heh.

the gig went well. the door money went to an MS charity. not sure what we raised, but i know it was a good crowd. raising money for charity by banging on the drums is WAY better than getting up early and doing a carwash or some such thing.

thank goodness for redundancy. during the gig a piece in my bass pedal snapped. but, since i’m working with a double pedal set-up, i was able to get things sorted and finish the gig no problem.

ran trivia tonight at the bar. the dude who hosts it has a blood pressure issue. it’s superHigh, and it’s wearing on his other parts (kidneys in particular). so, saturday he has a bit of an episode. no hospital time though. but, me being an ass, i ask him . . . .

Me: “Dude, if you go in and they keep you, do you have the questions written ahead of time, and can i get them?”

L: “yeah, they’re on the computer. it’s in the front room on the desk, you can’t miss it”

i know he keeps everything in a spiral bound notebook. has for over a year now. it’s not on a computer, it’s in a notebook. so i say . . .

“it’s all in that notebook, what the hell do you mean it’s on the computer?”

L: “goofball, the notebook is ON THE COMPUTER, in the front room, walk through the door and it’s right on the left!”

what can you say?

SWEET SIXTEEN – yay, the Big Red make it into the basketball Sweet 16 for the first time since . . . mmmm, perhaps the beginning of time?

the mens’ hockey team got a birth into the 16 team field that is the NCAA championship series. they won the ECAC tourney over the weekend. now, they’ll need a 4 game win streak. they’re a good team, but they aren’t a favorite even in their portion of the bracket.

the wrestling team (which is a sport that local folks keep an eye on) finished second in the nation. the sun seems to be shining

i’m off to catch some sleep.

i caught the Flyers last Saturday for the game where they won with 2.1 seconds left on the clock, after they were down to the division leding blackhawks with under 2 minutes to go. saw it from up top in a luxury suite, one section over from Paul Holmgren, their GM. it ruled!

the Big Red (Cornell) won their March Madness game. that’s fantastic news, but i’m still not a big basketball fan. more importantly they play in 20 minutes in the ECAC hockey finals. and it’s on the NHL network. that, i’m commandeering the TV for. final words on the Big Red, the suicide rate is back up at school. although it’s no higher than the national average, the campus is littered with deep gorges with, of course, running water below. there are several bridges that have sides that are easily scaled, and it provides an easy jumping point to certain death. much more dramatic than on OD as well.

the B.C. thing was a summer session between junior and senior year of high school. i did my 4 year at Cornell. at that time suicides were common. for a couple of years recently the school was suicide free. it just reminds me that college isn’t all “texts from last night” tales. it can be a meat grinder.

i made it out barefoot for the first time this spring. did the first grilling last night. got some yardwork in. now, i’m ready to make good on a resolution to master my machines. i’m going to learn small engine repair. by the end of it i want to be able to clean a carburator and gap spark plugs, balance cutting blades, all the usual nonsense – On The Spot, so i don’t have to take anything to the shop anymore. i have enough of the stuff (chainsaws to leaf blowers, mowers, snow blowers, etc.), so it’d be a Very worthwhile skill.

well, i’m off to peck away at taxes and catch a hockey game. tomorrow night is a gig, and i might catch a buddy’s band tonight, if the ride situation works out.