Hey! Look at little Derwin!

One of my proudest achievements in life has been finding a girl as wonderful as Heather to sign on for the role of The Wife. Two years ago, after a nine year "test drive" that had us crossing such milestones as moving across the country, putting her through grad school, and buying a house together, we finally made things official.

Smile big in the gazebo

I'm not really sure what we were waiting for, but hey, it's not the destination but rather the journey, right?

Avs RULE!

Thanks to Brozo and his dad, I had the extreme pleasure of taking in the Colorado Avalanche vs. the Dallas Stars on the NHL's opening night from the Xcel Energy suite in the Pepsi Center last night. (Avs lost 2-3 in OT. They owned the first two periods - up 2-0 in the second intermission, and then Dallas took it all away in the 3rd and the extra frame.) Freakin' good times, yo.

Love the Bucket Originally uploaded by Jake Sutton.

Highlights:

  • Matty's dad, Dennis asked "What happened with Leopold?" (the new Avalanche defenseman we got in trade for Alex Tanguay, who is starting the season on the Injured Reserve) Matt's cousin Nels answered, "He broke his pussy!"
  • The suite steward came in occasionally to make sure our free (to us) beer and nacho/fajita feast was well stocked. At one point he came up behind me as I sat in one of the plush leather chairs with a bucket filled with ice and beer: "Here, why don't you just put this down by your feet." I love that guy.
  • There was a dude a couple rows in front of us who would occasionally stand up with arms raised and holler "AVS... RULE!!" We found this hilarious. He was obviously trying to start a chant, but instead he got catcalls and Macho Man-styled echoes from Matt's buddy Aaron. One of the guys in the suite next to us was amused enough by our taunts that he suggested maybe "Beer... RULES!" would be more appropriate.
  • That suite next to us belonged to ClearChannel and featured a veritable rainbow of alternate lifestyles and hipsters. At one point a gal joined the other weirdos and exclaimed, "How did all the freaks end up in the suite tonight?" Matty and I aggreed that her sentiment also applied in our suite.

Thanks again, Men of the Brozovich Clan. I had a hell of a time.

TV Tidbits

One of my brother-in-law's best friends from Brockton is a television writer. He'd just gotten his first big gig writing for a show on fox called Happy Hour on Fox. It's a sitcom from the creators of That 70's Show and while it wasn't quite the genius show that 70's was right off the bat, we could see definite potential and each show had at least a couple laugh-out-loud jokes. (It looks like critics generally panned it, but real people thought is was OK. Typical.) Now Brilliant But Cancelled is proclaiming the demise of the show. My first clue was when my TiVo said the next episode wouldn't be recorded because it was no longer in the program guide, now I find news of its "hiatus" online and I'm more than a little bummed. I was just talking to Shawn in LA a week ago, and he was truly psyched to be working on the show and with the team involved. I'm not too worried about him -- he finally seems to be getting real footholds in Hollywood, but I was really looking forward to watching the show evolve. I guess there's the waaaay outside chance the show will actually be back in November, but nobody seems to think so. In more positive news, I watched the premiere of Heroes on NBC tonight and man, am I excited about that one.  It's right up my alley, for sure. Looks like everyone else digs it, too. Highly recommended.

Vacación

As was mentioned previously, tomorrow I hop in the trusty Honda with The Wife for a road trip to Los Angeles to see her brother, Chris. We'll be stopping in Sin City for a visit with Auntie Kate and some shut eye at the Imperial Palace. (Heather and I don't "do" Vegas, so we just go for cheap & convenient. Quiet, you!)

Saturday, we'll arrive in Los Feliz to hang out with The Boy.

Obviously, posting should be light, but keep an eye on the Flickr for the occasional shot. Don't expect celebs, though. I've only spotted one famous person in my handful of trips to LA, and that was only because Chris pointed out Zach del la Rocha as he went by (in his BMW 7-Series -- where's the RAGE in that?!).

Good/Bad

Good News: I'm on vacation for two weeks starting today. The Wife and I will be doing our annual road trip to LA to see her brother Chris. On the way, we will hook up with his S.O., Kate, who is in Vegas working on Ocean's 13. We'll be hanging out in Los Feliz for a week with no specific plans - just maxin' and relaxin'.

Bad News: It seems like work always has some kind of upheaval when I go on vacation. Last time we were acquired by a major corporation and the deal was finalized and announced just as I was leaving. This time we (just our office, not the major corporation) had a "10% workforce reduction" yesterday. It's a major hit to the psyche of the remaining workforce, I'll tell you that much. On a personal (and professional) level, I'm super bummed they decided to eliminate Matt's position in particular. I'm not worried about Brozo - he'll land on his feet without a doubt, but I'm gonna miss having him around day to day for sure.

Jarhead

Matt stopped by the office this morning. He graduated Marine Corps boot camp on Friday. Oddly his hair is longer than it was before he joined the Corps. And for a guy who started out pretty tiny, he trimmed down a lot. He also has no voice -- being a Marine is hard on the old voice box, I guess. ;)

Mittsy in Oz

So, suppose you're trying to get back in touch with a high school ex with whom you had remained friends but had lost contact since she got married and moved to Australia. You hit Google, right? Right. If you're lucky, you find something like this year-old article from her local Aussie paper: Wilson hams it up at Mitzy’s puppy school

Even animal behavioural trainer Mitzy Voiles thought there was more chance of pigs flying than attending one of her classes.

Man, Australia is awesome!

That said, I found a couple of email addresses for Mittsy (I don't remember if she ever actually used the 'z' spelling...). Bless the intarhiweb and all its glories.

The Weekend that Was

The big event of this weekend was of course, Matt & Jen's wedding. Some highlights from our perspective:

  • The entire wedding party was looking as sharp as ever. The happy couple were especially foxy.
  • Speaking of foxy, Matt's mother, Mary, was looking dynamite. She was representing her Italian roots in full effect.
  • Matt told me at some point during his bachelor's that we were to be seated at the so-called "Fun Table". Of course, that comes with some downsides:
    • For one thing, we were among the last to get "released" to the buffet.
    • For another, our table was actually sacrificed for room on the dance floor, so we lost it all together.
    • Finally, there's the pressure to perform, which turned out not to be a problem -- I really hope someone with a good sense of humor has the job of going through the disposable camera pictures...
  • The Wife has always had a problem coordinating outfits with me when we've gone to things like this. I would often get annoyed because our outfits would often even clash -- it's one thing to not match, it's another to go all black & white while I'm in earth tones... ;) Well, this time we worked it out: I wore my brown sharkskin suit with a red/purple shirt that matched Hezzy's top fairly closely. It paid off, too. The Wife was super-pleased by all the comments we got about our outfits -- the best of which was when one of the photographers came up to us and said "You guys are without a doubt the best dressed couple here." Score! So let that be a lesson, ladies: Treat your man like an accessory and take the time to coordinate his kit to yours (at least a bit).
  • At any rate, good times were had by all. Congrats to Matt & Jen on a fine wedding.

Other than that, I didn't do much. I ended up riding the Bonneville for about 70 miles yesterday, so that was cool.

Call Me Waldo

Work is... um... aggravating/draining these days, and much to my surprise, I've had a bit of a social life in the after work hours lately. So... Yeah... Light on the posting. Nothing much going on worth reporting anyway. I have continued to post junk to del.icio.us in the mean time, though. You can spy those under the "Link Dump" tab.

I get to go to my first NHL playoff game tonight, though. Sadly, it may be to witness my Avs get swept by the Mighty Ducks.

For the record, my Viva El Papi KinTee got good reviews at last night's poker game.

The Oscars

The Wife and I ended up attending a small Oscars get-together last night. While we had a blast (and I won the pool!), I have to say the the event itself was kind of dull. My thoughts (in no particular order):

  • Charlize looked horrible (but as I pointed out last night - she's still hot).
  • Salma Hayek hurt me, she looked so good.
  • John Stewart was mostly inoffensive. A couple good chuckles.
  • I thought the fake promo commercials were great.
  • Seems like a lot of folks were more embarassed than entertained by Ben Stiller's greenscreen suit antics. Personally, I thought it was a hoot.
  • Why were there only three nominations for best song? That seems weird. And why were all the performances except Dolly's put on like weird high school plays? [Highlight: During the performance of the song from Crash: "Is his hand in her crotch?! What the hell?! Are they reenacting the whole movie?"]
  • George Clooney basically owns Hollywood nowadays, doesn't he?
  • Reese Witherspoon is sweet, but I just can't get past her giant forehead and generally triangular face.
  • No Mr. Chicken in the "folks who died this year" montage, eh? Fine.
  • I won the pool (amongst only four people, because others showed up late) thanks to picking oddball categories like cinematography and art direction. I think I only got one or two of the major categories right.
  • The show finished early?! They could probably have afforded to not be such speech Nazis, eh?

Other than that... Meh.