171 Days

So this morning was special...after 171 days, my dad ventured back into the office :-)

His last trip to the office, on August 16th, was short-lived, as it turned out he was having a severe heart attack that had started a day or two prior. The archive of this site has the background story if you haven't gone through it yet, but all that is in the past, as we drove him into the office today and he actually spent a good deal of time here. It's after four on the east coast, and I think he left about 3:30PM, so all in all, about six or seven hours of work.

The significance of him coming back to the office wasn't lost on me: I've been thinking about today for quite some time. However, his return was a result of our scheduling a major meeting with a client of ours in which he needed to be involved, so I wasn't sure how much of him we'd have (ie 50%, 60%, etc.). He really did well, and wasn't too wiped from the emotion of the day, at least for him. My sister was weepy on several occasions, more though from all the people in the building -- the staff, our neighbors, people nearby, the inhabitants of one of our partners on another floor in this building -- stopping by to say hello and to welcome him back and to let him know he was missed. I know what it's like being on the receiving end of that attention, for better or worse, although his absence was for much longer and under much more grave, unknown circumstances. And so I found myself watching and just taking the moment in, despite having a half-dozen major deadlines tomorrow and Friday. It's something, this experience: it humbles you, it makes you sad, it ages you and it makes you appreciate the things you have in your life. And it reminds you that life is too short to keep cancers in your life. Lesson learned.

Since I'm under pressure, I'll make the remainder of this post brief: however, that isn't to say that less-than-usual has been transpiring in the grey matter between my ears (then again, isn't to say there's been more, or, frankly, any, either). So without further ado, here's a bunch of observations I've been shaping into little balls of clay to be borne herein or elsewhere at a later date:

How many Law and Order and CSI shows can they show on TV at any given time? There's CSI, CSI Miami, Law and Order, Law and Order SVU, Law and Order SUV (for folks who like their shows big and inefficient on gas), Law and Order Re-Runs First Run (TNT), Raw and Board Her (for folks into porn movies), and then there's The Practice, Boston Something-Or-Other, and some show featuring the magic of Doug Henning. There really is way too much on TV for me to handle.

Speaking of TV, I'm at a dangerous crossroads: I need more South Park in my diet, but I don't have the inclination to watch new episodes because most of the newer ones I've managed to see are fairly stupid as compared to the older ones, but I am too busy to be bothered breaking out the DVD's and firing up the first few seasons. And since I'm in the middle of a PC-wide migration, I have no idea where I stashed the mpg versions of the best episodes. And sure as shit, by the time I find them I'll already be back watching hockey -- live from Moscow at 7:30AM.

Because there is absolutely no way there will be hockey this year (watch, just my writing this will virtually guarantee that they'll find a way to bridge the gap and everyone can go home happy, except for me by putting this thought to...um...paper).

There will likely be no hockey this year and it's kinda possible that next year is a wash too. The players don't understand that there is so much distance in the budgets of teams that the richest teams (hello, New York Rangers) are signing players to three-year deals that are more lucrative than some teams' annual payrolls. To wit, Kevin Lowe, who is a former Ranger and currently the General Manager of the Edmonton Oilers (Edmonton, in Canadia), recently was quoted as saying that if the season was somehow salvaged without a salary cap ("cost certainty" is the league's euphemism for same), he would advise the owner of the team to suspend operations until the finances could be reworked. In other words, he suggested the team temporarily fold. The Oilers are the team which berthed Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, Paul Coffey and a slew of other legends. The fact that the team might have to fold -- temporarily or otherwise -- suggests how fucked up the finances are. It also suggests the players have no clue what is happening, or they don't believe it. Well fellas...when a team goes out of business because it's losing too much money, perhaps then you'll awaken from your "we'll take a paycut" mantra and get your heads out of your asses so there can be hockey yet again in North America, aside, of course, from SkyRink (GO GENERALS!). I've had a half-dozen calls from former teammates of mine, and each of them has suggested or asked about the possibility of there being no more NHL. And while we sit and ponder this issue, it occurs to me that no one really seems to care, except for folks that own (or are employed by) Labatt's, Molson and other beer manufacturers; owners of bars, pubs and sports-themed restaurants; and defense attorneys. WooooHooooo.

You don't see much of Howie Mandell anymore; same with Yahoo Serious and Carrot Top. I'm not complaining -- I just noted a trend: douchebags are no longer en vogue. Let's call Pauly Shore and make it a foursome ;-)

Possibly separated at birth: Michael (Fahrenheit 9/11) Moore and Peter (Lord of the Rings) Jackson. Both of these guys are well-known (not using the word 'famous') directors and both have the personal hygiene of a three-toed sloth with a drooling problem. They show up at awards shows stuffed into tuxes they forgot to return to the rental place 20 years ago, when they were half the men they are today (literally). Neither seems to have mastered the art of shaving (their faces, anyway) and both have flouted the typical Hollywood aesthetic to try and look semi-presentable in public. Boy, two famous directors, two guys you'll never see in the low-fat section of the market, and two guys who make George Michael look properly shaved. At once. As Henry Silva once quipped: Bullshit or not? You be the judge.

As my other half recently discovered, the new camera-phones are wonderful items, unless, of course, you want to take a quality piCture with one. Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and all the other handset makers -- take note. We are not satisfied with the grainy, washed-out colors in those cheapo 1.3 megapixel tic-tac cameras stuffed onto the edge of a cell phone. I need a cam-phone that can take a decent picture in low light, say, in the back room at a party or in the back seat of a cab, without anyone noticing, despite their close proximity to me or other party-goers...and then I need to enlarge it so I can save it on my Palm for later, discreet, viewing ;-)

Two very odd things I overheard today:

"Don't ask for whom the work-bell tolls...it tolls for thee, Fred Flinstone."

"Tomorrow's another day, but tonight's TONIGHT."

Finally:

Today was, and will always remain, a good day.