Sent from my awesome iPhone 5!
Low Light Kitty
Category: Uncategorized
Drop the Puck
I have such mixed feelings about the end of the NHL lockout. I love hockey so much. I bleed black and gold. I am a Boston Bruins fanatic. I hang on every shift, every play, every pass, every check, every shot, every save, every goal. Damn it, I love this friggin game!
But they hurt me again. The hurt me eight years ago when they cancelled a whole season, yet this time hurts me even more. I guess it’s knowing that I am partly to blame this time. I came back last time and this year I paid for my lack of vision.
I believe in my heart that three lockouts under the current commissioner proves that the league is fundamentally broken and must be allowed to fail. Then a new league, one that cares about its customers and does not take them for granted or use them as bargaining chips, can rise from the ashes of the old.
But damn it if I don’t love my Bruins and damn me for wanting to see them play this year.
The Framework of the NHL CBA is in Place
This morning at around 6:00am Eastern time, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and NHLPA Director Donald Fehr appeared together at a press conference and announced to the few of us left who still care, that a framework for a new collective bargaining agreement has been reached.
There area a few things left to do. The legal document has to be written up. It then has to be presented to the league and union memberships. Then it needs to be ratified by both sides. This crap has gone on long enough that we can assume both sides will rubber stamp it, just so they can get back to work.
After that, a schedule will be announced. Players and coaches will gather together, and an abbreviated training camp will take place for about a week. Dougie Hamilton will show up to Bruins camp, and nut job Tim Thomas will not. After about a week the butchered, insultingly shortened season will commence and history will fill up a great big bucket with asterisks to place next to everything that happens.
The single most important thing left to do needs to happen before the games start. The fans need to keep their money.
I said it before, I’ll say it again. This disaster is the fans’ fault. If we had punished the league for its lack of loyalty last time, then this lockout would never have happened. We did not punish them though. We came back to the game with our wallets open, ready to blow our dough on tickets, merch, concessions, anything. I’m as guilty as the next sheep.
We, the fans, cannot… Must not… Make the same mistake again. Keep your money, hockey fans. Teach the NHL that our loyalty, and our money are not to be taken for granted. Show the league and the players union who the real bosses are. Teach them a lesson that they will never forget, and stop this bullshit from happening again.
Do not buy tickets. Do not buy merchandise. I’d like to say that we should boycott TV broadcasts, but I don’t think many of us will be able to go that far. I will say that we should continue to avoid doing business with companies that sponsor the league and the individual teams. That one is particularly important for me, being a Bruins fan, as word has it that Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs is due for a much larger share of blame pie than most owners.
I can’t expect fans to not watch the games. I can encourage all fans to not spend their money. Let all 30 teams play in empty buildings for their ridiculous shortened season. Let them know who was affected by this idiocy the most. Let them know who they really work for.
Best Scene in Movie History?
This may be the best scene in movie history.
I happened to hear some one quoting this at work the other day and it all came flooding back to me.
It just doesn’t matter.
Another NHL Lockout Post
tick tock, tick tock.
The clock is ticking. One week to go until the league’s deadline to cancel the season. One week to go until the unthinkable happens… again… and the league cancels the whole entire season. One week.
And the two sides didn’t meet face to face yesterday. Are you kidding?
So here are two of the remaining sticking points.
Ready?
The league wants next season’s salary cap to be 60 million dollars. The players want next season’s salary cap to be 65 million dollars.
Both sides have agreed that term length of the new collective bargaining agreement (assuming they ever actually agree to one) should be ten years. The players want an option to back out after seven years. The league wants an option to back out after eight years.
There’s also an issue dealing with player pensions that seems like it might be a legitimate problem, but is still something that a little give and take should be able to resolve in a short time. Still though… they are hung up on seven years vs eight years, and 60 million vs 65 million. Really. Both sides are saying that publicly. Honestly, they are. Both sides are so incredibly stupid that they are risking the cancellation of ANOTHER NHL season over these issues.
My god people, how much of a collective group of assholes can you be? For the salary cap? How about 62.5 million. Problem solved! As for the term length, I have a more complicated solution. Take a coin, right? Flip it. Heads means the opt out is seven years. Tails means the opt out is eight years. Problem solved!
They have had a Federal mediator at all of the recent talks. I swear that poor son of a bitch must be ready to just start punching these idiots. Meet with the players and punch Donald Fehr in his World Series canceling head. Meet with the players and punch Gary Bettman in his season canceling head. BOOM! Problems solved! Drop the damn puck!
Grocery Shopping (Nerd Alert)
(this is a nerd alert. the nerd factor on this post is through the nerd roof. consider yourself warned)
I went grocery shopping today and I was on fire!
Jen drew up a list for me before I left home, and there I was in Market Baskett… finding stuff without any trouble. Every single thing on the list, BAM! Found it and threw it into the cart.
I was like a grocery shopping artist. There was no stopping me. Even things I’ve never bought before, like spinach. POW! Right in the cart.
I was so pleased that I went all Hipstamatic shake-to-randomize.
Backing Up Flickr
I have tried a couple of different publicly available (free) programs to back up my Flickr account. There are over 25,000 pictures on the account so backing up is kind of a huge undertaking.
The last time I did this it was on a windows machine. The program I used worked well, but not perfectly. It failed when there were multiple files in a set that had the same file name. Why it did not use Flickr’s ID and guarantee uniqueness, I will never know, but the result was my iPhone sets were missing just about everything. The upload app I normally use sticks the name “photo” on everything that isn’t specifically given a name. Therefore the back up program just kept overwriting everything.
last night I ran a really slick python script i found. It ran from the terminal on my Mac and it backed up everything perfectly. I was really pleased. I checked the folder created to hold my iPhone 4 set and everything was there.
How many photos were in the folder?
2,112.
Thats right, Rush fans… 2112.
Kitty Climbs Mt. Robbie
This is a new one for Patches. I sat at my desk and she jumped onto the arm of the couch behind me and climbed onto my lap. From there she climbed me!
Such a good baby kitty.
My 2012 in Pictures – Part Deux
Yeah, I did a my-year-in-pictures thing the other day. It was fun. What the hell, thought I, why not do it again? This time I’ll run fast and loose with the whole one-pic-from-each-month thing. I’m crazy like that.
We have to get our pics of the Sands Bridge in Methuen before she collapses. Or maybe I should say before she finishes collapsing. It’s already started. Also, I don’t think I found a relative in the Grove Street Cemetery, but who knows?
In February I finally finished an RPM Challenge on time. It only took me five tries. We also got a new bed. Jen’s penguin approved.
In March, the kids and I became wilderness explorers. Hipstamatic came along for the ride. Actually, we just wandered around in the woods behind our house for a little while. It was fun.
April in San Diego. I want to go back RIGHT NOW!
May gave us baseball, Bar Harbor, and my first up close New England Lighthouse.
The picture pickin’s are slim in June, but we did get a new Rush album (and it is awesome) and we got another fantastic piano recital from the kids.
July offers more choices after a spontaneous trip to Boston, and a week long stay in Maine that included some time in the mountains of New Hampshire.
In August we went to the Top of the Hub for the first time in my life. The views of my city were spectacular. We also spent some twilight time on Hampton Beach.
September had mountain waterfalls, leaf peeping, my first ever attempt at photo-walking in Tewksbury, and more Rush.
October continues to belong to Washington, DC.
The camera didn’t come out much in November, but I did torture the cat, and my wife, with my camera phone, and we did celebrate Turkey Day.
December had more mountains, more mountain streams, and Christmas.
And there we have a second view of my 2012 in pictures. Forgive the gratuitousness.
Happy New Year (again).
Sickness Continues for Both of Us
Yesterday I felt like dung. Today I feel like dung again. Sniffles, sneezing, lots of coughing, stuffy head, post nasal drip, all sorts of garbage like that.
Still, it doesn’t measure up to what we feared about my wife yesterday.
Jen has had a rough time with antibiotics lately. After stopping her course of antibody number two, she had a nasty headache on Wednesday. Yesterday evening it came back, along with some weird sensations on her face. The emergency room was recommended by her doctor’s office. It turned out to be just another mild illness piled on top of the other nastiness she’s been fighting off for three weeks or so. She’s okay, just not feeling terribly well.
They took her out of the room to do some tests and I fought my nerves by playing with hipstamatic… as usual.
I even took a creepy hipsta-selfie.
Today we get to see how the new antibiotic goes. Her work schedule is very full today, so I haven’t heard anything from her. I sent her a “how ya feelin'” email, but no word yet. I take that as a good thing. If she were feeling sick she’d tell me.
I love her.
I adore her.
I want her to be feeling better.
Inside the Red Head's Head 