As Hurricane Tammy bears down on the southeast, I feel kind of like I’m caught up in a little hurricane of my own.

Actually, the hurricane is supposed to be right around Greenville at game time this Saturday, which should be interesting. A friend of mine from work was thinking about coming to a game this year and taking some pictures. She went to Stephen F. Austin (in Texas), a team that’s played us one time – and knocked us out of the playoffs in 1989 in a snowstorm. My friend’s name is Tammy. We came to a decision that this weekend ain’t gonna be the one that she goes to Greenville. Hurricanes, snowstorms, Tammy, Stephen F. Austin, losing big games….the karma just isn’t there, dudes…

At any rate, my little storms at work finally got the best of me yesterday, and I was forced to send an email out to a number of people and say, “I don’t know what you all want me to do. Please use little words and tell me.”

I was totally serious. Two days ago, I found myself on a conference call promising to have something done on November 27th. After the call, I had to ask a co-worker what it was that I’d promised to do.

BEI currently has a number of different important (read “company-saving”) initiatives going on:

• IPTV – interactive television sent over extremely high-speed DSL connections)
• HSDA (aka WBB) – Wireless high-speed internet access
• CyberCSR – A web-based ordering/billing system for our current customers.
• ITC 5.503 – An upgraded to our primary customer-service software
• UDM (Universal Domain Migration) – bringing BEI’s networking structure into the larger corporate system
• BEIWEB – A complete overhaul of our affiliate intranet/reporting systems.

While all of these things are wonderful from a staying-in-business standpoint, our president has decided that we should be able to accomplish them all without benefit of any increase in headcount. We currently have two UNIX administrators and one Windows administrator (that’d be me). The UNIX people are sort of overwhelmed with their contributions to ITC 5.503 – you can imagine how I’m faring, having to deal with ALL of the projects at once. I’ve become sort of a deer caught in the headlights.

Take this morning, for example. My part of the ITC upgrade is to upgrade a system called “Compass” – the Windows front-end to the ITC back-end. I wasn’t aware that I needed to do ANYTHING until two days ago, when I was informed at about 7:00 AM that I needed to have the “test corp” updated that day. I scrambled around, found out what software needed to be installed, and installed it. Then I let a UNIX guy on to the box to tweak the database settings – bam. Box crashed. Operating system corrupted.

So the upgrade became a complete rebuild. I’ve rebuilt the box. I’ve installed all of the necessary application software. I’ve engaged developers and experts in Trinidad and California. As of 10 minutes ago, users still couldn’t use the application and nobody knows why. Since this is an application-based problem, I have know idea what the problem is (and, to be honest, that’s not my job anyway). However, because I’m the only Windows admin, I’m the one getting the calls from users…and all I can do is say, “We’re working on it,” before sending ever-more frantic voicemails to Trinidad and California.

The IPTV project, while being VERY cool, is an absolute monster. I’m supposed to have 138 servers delivered tomorrow. All will have to be unboxed, racked, have an operating system installed, and be individually configured to do the job that they’re supposed to do. I’m dearly hoping that we’ll get some help from our corporate brethren on this one, but I’m not actually counting on it.

CyberCSR has been going on for over a year and involves fighting with our corporate internet centers in Birmingham and Charlotte – people who, quite frankly, are so interested in taking over our infrastructure completely that they’re setting up “security rules” that could only be complied with by asking customers to give us their first-born before we allow them to access their bill.

What’s just super-terrible is that all of these projects are inter-related and dependent on each other. IPTV can’t go into effect unless people can sign up online, which needs CyberCSR. CyberCSR can’t function unless the billing software is updated to ITC 5.503. IPTV also depends upon our technicians having access to Wireless Broadband (WBB). We can neither sell this stuff nor work on it unless our reporting system (BEIWEB) is operational – and I can’t complete UDM because BEIWEB is having a problem operating in the corporate network.

One of the UNIX admins, being a very helpful lady, has taken the initiative of “helping me” by ordering Windows servers – but she doesn’t always keep me informed of what servers she’s ordered – I might make the mistake of assuming that she’s taken care of something, only to find out the day before I’m supposed to have it operational that the server hasn’t even been spec’d out, much less ordered. It’s sort of freaking me out.

So today, I’ve got a user screaming at me because Compass isn’t working yet, but I need to go to a meeting downtown for UDM-related stuff.

There are times when I hate my job.

The November 27th thing? That’s when I promised that I’d have CyberCSR working, apparently.

But hey, I took a really cool picture a few days ago. This is my cat, Bo. I set the shutter speed to half a second and zoomed in on him while I was making the exposure. I like the “saintly” effect that it created. Looks like a radial blur out of Photoshop, but this came straight out of the camera.

Later, y’all.

Where’d September go? All I remember is sitting in traffic.

And football. Always football. My college team has continued to limp along since being crushed a few weeks ago in the second week of the season. They coasted to an easy win against Samford in week three, won in double-overtime vs. Hostra two weeks ago, and were in the process of destroying a vastly-outmanned Gardner-Webb squad last weekend before most of the starters left the game in the second quarter. The game ended up with Furman on top, 48-31 and featured something like 1,000 yards total offense (both teams).

Our defense continues to be suspect, and the game next week – against a very good Appalachian State team – will probably answer a lot of questions about Furman’s chances to live up to their pre-season #1 rankings.

The worst part about a blow-out win like last weekend’s is that it’s tough for me to take the right pictures. The radio crew at the games selects three “Players-of-the-Game” – offense, defense, and special teams. As part of my sponsorship deal, I’m supposed to provide them with a decent photo of each of those players, which is enlarged to a life-sized portrait to be used on banners which hang in the athletic offices.

Must admit that it’s a serious ego stroke to walk down the hall there and see a string of banners made with my pictures stretching back over the last couple of years, but this is the first year that I’ve actually been contractually obligated to get those pictures. Because the players of the game aren’t chosen by the crew until very late in the game – sometimes after the game is over – I’ve usually just got to hope that the chosen players have been on the field and visible enough so that I manage to catch their images during the course of shooting the game. In a game like last weekend’s, that becomes a tall order because there are so many different faces on the field. I got lucky in one respect because I was informed late in the fourth quarter that the special team player was going to be the long-snapper (the guy who snaps the ball for punts, field goal attempts, and point-after-touchdown attempts. About thirty seconds after I learned that, Furman scored and I was able to shoot the long-snapper on the PAT. If I hadn’t been told in advance, there’s no way I would’ve taken the kid’s picture.

I also managed to snag a couple of useable shots of the offensive player, but it appears that I completely dropped the ball on the defensive player – so I’ll be digging through the photos from the last two home games today to see if I can find one of this kid – isolated enough so that nobody will know that it wasn’t from this game. Not a huge deal, but when you consider that I take 600-700 pictures per game, it becomes a time-consuming task.

I handed a couple of my cameras off to “assistants” this past weekend. It’s interesting to see what other people manage to shoot, but it also gave me about 300 extra pictures to wade through. I was trying to put up a slideshow yesterday, and really sort of lost interest after about an hour of staring at photos. One guy spent a lot of time photographing his friends, his daughters, the crowd, people on the sideline…I did manage to use a couple of his shots, but it was basically a yawn-fest. Sort of like watching your neighbor’s home movies.

I managed to get a few decent shots, too. The second-string quarterback made my day with this shot.

My favorite shot this year (actually, my favorite shot of all time) was taken last week, however. It happened after the game when a guy I know from my website let his kid try to kick an extra point. I got down on my stomach directly in front of the kid and snapped the following – and nearly wet myself when I saw what I’d gotten. This is the type of shot that makes the whole idea of sports shooting appealing. You can’t really see how good this is at this size, but it’s going to make a great poster for me.

Listening to the internet broadcast of the last game at the moment – I’m on the radio! Woohoo! Man I’m a geek. In my defense, I was taken by surprise. I was wandering around in the endzone and I yelled over to the sideline reporter to ask him if the radio guys had picked their players yet. He told me no and then shoved a microphone in my face and started asking me questions about the players of the game that are selected by my website (I award “The Unofficial Player of the Game” each week).

Went skating with a friend late last week and managed to completely wear him out. It was kind of cool because he’s a big hiker-type guy and I figured I’d be vomitting by the time we’d finished. It worked out the other way – he was heaving after about 10 miles and had to quit. I continued on for another 10 miles or so.

Had to rotate the wheels on my skates a few weeks ago – I’d completely worn away the inside edge on the leading wheels. I’ve been paranoid ever since that my wheels are going to fall off when I’m tearing down a hill or something. Hasn’t happened yet. Knock on wood.

Well, I’ve completely wasted a morning between checking emails and looking at backups from the weekend (yeah – I actually am getting some work done). Hope everyone has a fun week and doesn’t get hit by a hurricane or anything.

Not that you’d care, of course. But it does. I haven’t shaved in a few days.

Haven’t written anything here in a few weeks, either. It isn’t that I’m trying to keep my fascinating life a secret from everybody. It’s just that I don’t have a fascinating life. If you manage to plow your way through whatever follows, I’m sure you’ll agree with me.

One riveting thing has happened. I got a comment on the last entry I made to this thing. It was pretty exciting. Some misguided soul informed me that “I liked your blog. Here is a link that you’ll like.” And he provided a link to an online dating form.

Now I axe ya: what kind of a moron (named Maurice, by the way) spends his time reading a blog called “Stuff Nobody Reads” and determines from my recap of a football game that I’m interested in signing up for his dating service?

Yo, Maurice. I’m not. Got me a girlfriend, two cats, a house, a job…I’m pretty well set right now. But hey – THANKS FOR CARING, BUDDY!

Get a life. Idiot.

Phew. Feel a little better now.

At any rate, in going over my last entry, I notice that I said something about how great Furman’s football team could be this year, but covered by bets by stating, “Or we could lose next week, in which case you can ignore the previous paragraph.” Well, we did indeed lose the next week. In spectacular fashion. Our all-world quarterback threw 5 interceptions and we also lost a fumble en route to a 41-21 drubbing by Western Carolina in Cullowhee, NC. It was the first time in 7 years that WCU had beaten Furman, and the first time since 1992 that they’d beaten a team ranked in the top 5. The celebrated by tearing down their own goalposts, and Furman faithful celebrated by using my football website to call for the resignation of everyone associated with Furman football.

Because the loss was to a conference foe, we got to spend a week in last place in the conference. Fortunately, GSU (our biggest rival) lost to Wofford this past weekend while we whupped up on non-conference opponent Samford. So now GSU is in the cellar, and Furman is in next-to-last. We’re still ranked in the top 10 nationally, however. And I managed to get one very good picture taken during the Samford game – of Daric Carter, one of three Paladins who rushed for over 100 yards. Carter was named the Verizon Player of the Game, and this picture will be blown up (life-size) and put on a banner to be hung in the athletic offices. In exchange for the pictures each week, I get sponsorship discounts (this year, my website is sponsoring the Furman halftime shows).

Before the Samford game, which was played in Greenville, I drove up to Greg and Lisa’s house and spent a few hours eating hot dogs and burgers, playing with William, and generally doing what is known in the deep south as “visiting.” Lisa was diappointed to learn that, no, I am neither engaged nor interested adoption of William – although he is a cute li’l bugger.

YOU CATCH THAT, MAURICE? “Engagement.” “Adoption.” I’m all booked up, buddy. Sell crazy someplace else.

Maurice makes my hypertension worse. I’m sure of it. Is this an unreasonable reaction?

Sorry…back to stuff nobody’ll read. After I played with William (which was really the only reason that I went to G&L’s place – although Greg narcissistically believes that I just wanted to bring him a lawn mower), I continued on to Greenville. I ended up getting home around 1:00 AM Sunday and then absolutely BOUNCED out of bed at 7:30 for church.

Bounced, I tell ya.

Spent the afternoon cleaning my bedroom and fell asleep early. Didn’t want to get up yesterday morning.

But I did. Then remembered I had an all-day meeting downtown and rushed to get to it. Had a quintet rehearsal after that and didn’t get home until 9:00.

Didn’t want to get up this morning, either.

Hoping to get some skating/walking done this afternoon. I haven’t really gotten any exercise for about a week, which might be why I’m exhausted all of the time.

And now we’re all caught up. If anything exciting happens, I’ll be sure to let you all know.

Yes indeed. God’s chosen sport – college football – has finally begun its season; for Furman fans, it did so in spectacular fashion last Thursday night (9/1/05) in Jacksonville, Alabama.

In a rematch of one of last years quarterfinal playoff games, Furman traveled to Jacksonville State University to face the 20th-ranked JSU Gamecocks. Ranked #2 in the nation, Furman may have been a little overconfident, but after watching a 14-point lead disappear in 31 seconds, the Paladins must’ve known that they were in for a battle. Defensively, Furman had trouble with the fired-up JSU club, and our special teams were absolutely horrid, but Furman still managed to cling to 3-to-10-point leads until JSU scored with just under 90 seconds left to go up 4.

Furman responded by driving the length of the field and reaching the Gamecock 2-yard line with 6 seconds left. Third down. Ingle Martin’s pass was tipped at the line of scrimmage, fell incomplete, and the JSU bench emptied onto the field in celebration. Standing with Furman Sports Information Director Hunter Reid on the sidelines, I assumed that the ball had been intercepted, as the play had only taken 3 seconds.

I was wrong. So were the Gamecocks. The officials cleared the field and requested that 1 second be put back on the clock. So here’s the scenario. It’s 4th-and-Goal from the 2. 1 second left. Down by 4 to the 20th-ranked team in the country at their place.

Ingle Martin found Justin Stepp wide open in the endzone for the touchdown. Game over. Furman 37, JSU 35. Our benches emptied and I screamed myself silly. Possibly the best game I’ve ever seen, right behind the 1985 National Championship against Georgia Southern – when we came out on the short end of a similar late-game play. All most people will see in a few years when they look at the records will be a “W”, but that last drive showed me some guts that Furman hasn’t had in many years. This could be a very special team.

Or we could lose next week. If that’s the case, just forget that last paragraph.

After the game, I drove about 30 miles to Cheaha State Park, located at the highest point in Alabama (somewhere around 2,500 feet above sea level, I think). While not the greatest campground I’ve ever tried, Cheaha did have some very nice things about it. The weather was gorgeous. Low 70’s during the day, low 60’s with an ever-present breeze at night. Spectacular views, if one wanted to hike a bit. A nice camp store that had everything I’d possibly need. Running water in the facilities. Overall, I’d give it a B-.

I stayed there until Sunday morning, reading books, watching a couple of movies, generally doing nothing except receiving and answering the occassional page (amazingly, both my pager and cell phone had signal). Most of the pages had to do with the ongoing struggle of BellSouth to locate employees lost in New Orleans, particularly one of BellSouth Entertainment’s (BEI’s) two NO employees, a guy named Jerry Hill. The other BEI employee, Paul Tran, had been successfully relocated to Baton Rouge during the week, but Jerry was missing until sometime Saturday night. I got the following messages from my CIO at 11:00 Saturday night:

“Update about Jerry. End of my shift at the BellSouth employee response center. At the beginning of the shift, 3000 out of about 6500 employees in the affected areas were unaccounted for. Currently the number is about 900.

-Nancy

-Forwarded message from Mark T. Hopkins (Jerry’s boss)

We finally got him and his entire family to the BellSouth tent city in Baton Rouge. They are safe and now under the excellent care that CRES provides with hot food, showers, sleeping quarters, and most importantly, armed security. This was the delay from last night when we finally got them to a safe CO (central office) until tonight. Coordination with the armed security forces assigned to BellSouth too some time due to their efforts with transporting multi BellSouth employees to safety. Now we can begin to plan for restoration of our facilities.

At 11am this morning, the local NOLA news reported that the looters at Bundy Road (our “head end” in NOR – the equivalent of where I work in Atlanta) were firing on the firefighters that are using Bundy for their water rescues in the area. We will be off the air for some time to come.”

It was a stark reminder that not everybody was wrapped up in college football – and that there are some serious idiots in the world.

Jerry, Paul and I had been working out details two weeks ago to try to get my server shipped back to me from Bundy – I’d opted not to go to New Orleans earlier this year when I updated servers in Florida. I guess I don’t have to worry about that server now. Either it’s under water or some misguided soul with an AK-47 has decided that it’d look just SWELL in his flooded-out living room.

Looting for food and water? Sure.

Looting for shoes? Maybe.

Looting for televisions, stereos, and broadcasting equipment that you wouldn’t know how to use and won’t be able to sell? Are you an idiot?

Shooting rescuers for fun. I hope you die soon.

And on that happy note, I can now use the rest of today to get some stuff done around the house. Lawns need mowing (again), carpets need cleaning (again), bed needs changing (still)….and I’ve got to do some work at the office tonight (again). Happy Labor Day to all.

That’d be “BellSouth” – not that other BS word.

The good news is that I’m apparently going to get paid an extra 4 hours a week for just being me. The bad news is that we’ve apparently started down a slope to … well … BS.

It appears that one group within our affiliate (we’ll call them “Group A”) learned that my little IT group (three whole people) has been in the habit of taking comp time occassionally because we’re on call – literally – 24×7. We also tend to work some really odd hours so that our users can continue to do their jobs (said users include “Group A”).

Here’s the way it might work. I work fairly regular hours Monday – Thursday (and am on call when I’m not working), but on Friday, I need to patch a server. This can only be done when users aren’t working, so I plan to do it at midnight Friday. This being the case, I go to work at 10:00 Friday morning, work until 3:00, then go home, then go back to work at 11:00 Friday night and work until 2:00 Saturday morning. Everybody counting? I’ve worked 8 hours.

Later Saturday morning, I check things out for a couple of hours. A user reports a problem at 3:00 in the afternoon, so I drag myself away from my bar stool, help them out (they’ve probably forgotten their password or something, but are certain that it has to do with the work I did Friday night), and go back to my bar stool – where I’m still on call.

Monday, I get a wild idea about upgrading a server, so I work from 6:00 in the morning until 4:00 in the afternoon. Tuesday. I work a normal day. Wednesday, somebody calls me at 5:00 for a conference call, which I take in my car on the way to skating.

Etc. This goes on for a month, during which time I never mow my lawn.

After noticing that my lawn is now 8 feet tall, I call my boss on a Thursday afternoon and tell her that I’m going to leave the office at 2:00 to go home and mow my lawn. She says, “Please do mine, too.”

So I leave. Do we all know how many hours I’ve put in in the last month? I don’t. I just figure it’s enough. So I’m taking half an afternoon off. I’m happy, my boss is happy, my users are happy…everybody’s ecstatic.

But Group A doesn’t like this, because when THEY work on-call, they report it and are paid for it.

I forgot to mention that Group A is comprised of HOURLY employees. I’m salaried.

Anyway, Group A’s spokesman goes to our CIO and complains that it isn’t fair that they can’t take comp time. So our CIO decides that the IT group must now be paid for being on call during the weekends.

You following this? I’m not.

Anyway, this scenario apparently makes Group A happy, but it makes 2 of the 3 people in the IT group (me being the holdout) upset that they aren’t being paid for the on call time that they have during the regular workweek (remember, we’re on call 24×7). Having learned that they can be paid for doing nothing during the weekend that they aren’t already doing, they now want to be paid for the hours they spend during the week doing nothing that they wouldn’t be doing already.

My boss brings this to the CIO, who decides that perhaps our IT group should work in shifts so that there’s always somebody AT THE OFFICE when the users are AT THE OFFICE (6:00 am to 9:00 pm).

The other two IT people (UNIX guys who back each other up) are ALL FOR THIS idea, and my boss is ready to go to the CIO and accept it…until I point out that I don’t HAVE a backup, and I don’t want to work 15 hours everyday AND be on call for the other 9 hours.

I am then called insane by one of the UNIX people, who sees an extra $500/month and loses sight of the fact that he’ll get to see his two toddlers approximately 10 minutes every day if he wants to work shifts.

I write to my boss and say, basically, “If I have to document my on call time on the weekends, I’ll do it, but I’m really not in this job for the money and I’ve told you that on MANY occassions.”

She responds, “Just keep doing what you’re doing and don’t worry about it.”

So I will. Only I think I’ll start locking the passwords of everyone in Group A. Just for fun.

Went skating after work yesterday on the Greenway. Got there pretty early (around 4:00) with the intention of absolutely wearing myself out before meeting a friend for a walk at around 7:00. After I’d gone about 2 miles – away from my car – a massive thunderstorm came through. Lots of thunder, actually, but fortunately not too much rain and no lightning. So I kept skating. The friend called at around 4:45 and said that she didn’t want to walk in the rain, so she was just going to go home after a working dinner (at 5:30).

I continued to skate until 5:30 or so – only got about 10 miles in – before the concrete got slick enough to make me quit. Didn’t have any idea what to do at that point, so I went home, fed the cats, turned on the tube, had a glass of wine, and zoned on the couch.

So much for trimming the hedges in front of my house. Maybe I’ll take an afternoon off to do it next week.

Well, it has been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon.

Wait. Wrong show. Sorry.

It’s been a stormy week in Duluth, actually. Strong thunderstorms every evening since Sunday, followed by steamy mornings and hot, muggy afternoons. This is not my favorite time of year in Georgia. Actually, this summer has been the wettest I can remember since moving here in 1990.

Still, I managed to slap on the skates yesterday and got about 12 miles in – this in spite of the fact that there were some extremely slick spots on the trail, a couple of non-navigable waterways (read: “puddles”) and one little stretch of mud that absolutely STOPPED my skates. Not sure how, but I managed to to fall when that happened. I haven’t taken in a spill on quite some time, actually.

Anyway, the 12 or so miles took me exactly 90 minutes, heartrate pretty much stayed between 165 and 180, and I had a good time. After I finished, I went over to a friend’s place and walked another two miles before having some food delivered (had a salad, a ham & cheese, and a quesadilla) and watching “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

Work has been pretty much a waste of time this week. I’m still in the proess of getting a “variance” for some new servers. In BellSouth-speak, a “variance” means filling out 8 times as much paperwork as is needed to do something in a month that should’ve taken a day. It’s a blood pressure-raising experience, to say the least. Adding to the fun yesterday was the arrival of a new computer worm, which put all of the cyber-Nazis at BS on full alert and resulted in my having to spend most of the day putting patches on servers – which, if the variance ever goes through, will be retired almost immediately.

I did get a couple of recipes from Lisa, however. Quite timely, because I’m supposed to be making dinner for/with a friend tonight and tomorrow night.

Other items of interest (if damned near anything is of interest):

• The feds have apparently gotten involved in my salary. I was informed yesterday that I must now be paid for two hours out of every 24 that I’m on call. Not sure where they arrived at that number, or how it should be implemented, but in my case, this is how it works out. I’m on call 24×7, but this two-hour dealie apparently will only be invoked on the weekends. So if I fill out all the proper paperwork, I’ll be paid for 4 hours extra every weekend. If I actually have to DO something during those 48 hours (and I decide to report it), then I get paid more. How much? I have no idea. And theoretically, if I have to do something during the regular workweek over and above 40 hours, then I’m supposed to be paid something for that, too. Hmmm…sounds like an hourly position to me. I’ve always preferred being able to take comp time, to be quite honest. Thanks, gubmint.
• Furman starts its football season two weeks from today in Jacksonville, AL. Actually closer to me than Greenville. I arranged yesterday to take September 2nd off (the game’s on the 1st for some reason), and I’m planning to head down there on the first, watch/film the game, and then find a place to camp over the Labour Day weekend. Yes…I’ll still be on call.
• I haven’t shaved in several days, and my face itches.
• A vendor bought me lunch on Monday. I had a buffalo burger. I thought buffalo were extinct or something. Buffalo burgers have 1/3 of the fat of cowburgers, by the way. So if you see a buffalo on your lawn, SHOOT IT. It does a body good you know.

Last Friday (August 12, 2005, for those of you who are already lost), we celebrated Mom’s and Dad’s 50th anniversary in style by arranging to have all of their children, with spouses and dates, gather at the Flat Rock Grille (“e” added to denote historical class – as in “Ye Olde Shoppe on the Hille”) in Greenville, SC (as opposed to Greevill, SC, or Flat Rock, NC – or Flatte Rocke, NC, for that matter).

While Mother insists that she knew about this plan from the very beginning, one has to wonder why she would look so shocked (above) upon first entering the restaurant. (Sorry, Ma. It appears to me that you weren’t entirely certain that we’d all be there…)

The 12 (yes, 12) of us spent 3 or 4 hours at the place, sucking up the suds and wine – and sparkling water, of course – and chowing down on some fairly good eats while being regaled with Cy’s rendition of how this surprise party came to fruition over the last many months. Dianne had arranged for Mom and Dad to receive anniversary wishes from President Bush, Cy and “T” presented the oldyweds with a coffee-table book about Israel and a Hebrew/Yiddish/Whatver/English dictionary, and all of us pitched in to get them a digital camera so that they could take lots and lots of pictures when they visit Israel later this year.

Dianne also managed to purloin the little bride-and-groom dealie that was on M&D’s wedding cake 50 years ago, and she cleverly had it grafted onto a brand new cake, which was hidden in the restaurant’s vault until the proper cake-cutting ceremony could be held.

This whole schlemiel (that’s a Yiddish/Hebrew word for “thing” which was made wildly popular by that great musical, Laverne & Shirley) was, of course, far too much excitement for the various grandchildren which have somehow appeared due to Mom and Dad’s original vows, and so a combination Birthday Party (for Larry), Anniversary Celebration (for Greg and Lisa) brunch was held at G&L’s house on Saturday morning (this would be the 13th – everyone still with me?). Of the 10 million or so who showed up for this august (get it? August? In August? Ha! I slay me!) event, foster child William was by far the cutest. He made a brief appearance before hitting the bottle and crashing for the duration.

Okay, so there weren’t 10 gazillion people there. It just seemed like it at times, what with the antics of Adam, Samuel, Wesley, Nathan, Riley, Tad, Zachary, and Dad; all of whom posed for incredibly touching photos, which I’m sure will one day be immortalized in FBI files.

After the festivities ended at G&L’s, I followed Larry, Marilyn, Adam and Samuel on a circuitous route back to 85 and headed south to Atlanta, arriving in plenty of time to gorge on shrimp alfredo and watch a movie (“K-Pax”, I think, was the name of it. Quite good).

Random pictures from the weekend:

Well, I’ve almost made it through another week without hacking off any necessary limbs, being struck by lightning or succumbing to heat stroke. In truth, the week has gone by awfully fast, which is nice. I guess.

Maybe it’s not. After all, it’s a whole week of my life and it’s over. Gone. Can’t get it back. Why its passing quickly should be a good thing is not quite clear to me.

I’ll save the philosophical questions about the benefits of flying time for later, thanks.

I played trivia at a place called Poor Richard’s Pub on Monday night. It’s one of the only places I’ve ever heard of that actually has REAL cash prizes (instead of HOUSE cash), and I figured I could use the extra $75. As should be expected with an attitude like that, I ended up in dead last place and won nothing but a ticket for a consolation pitcher of beer.

Poor Richard’s then announed that they will no longer have trivia. No joke.

On Tuesday of this week, I took the day off and traveled to Spartanburg, SC, for the 2005 Southern Conference Media football rouser and breakfast. This is a gathering held each year before the start of the football season at which members of the media (that’s me, I guess) watch a highlight film from the previous season, hear a speech from someone high up in the Southern Conference, eat breakfast, and then have the opportunity to interview all the coaches in the league as well as two players from each team.

The breakfast started at 8:00, so I left my house at around 5:30 and drove like a maniac. Managed to make it to downtown Spartanburg at 5 minutes before 8. Then became hopelessly lost and ended up driving around in circles for close to an hour before finally finding the hotel where the gala was taking place. So I missed everything except the interviews (and my free shirt, of course). Did get there in time to cast my preseason ballot for conference standings, which was cool. Interviewed three or four coaches, and a like number of players, with my friend Paul Barkley. Paul founded the fan site for Georgia Southern University about a year after I started The Unofficial Furman Football Page, and we’ve been buddies and rivals since that time. He’s a good guy and we enjoy getting to see each other once a year at the rouser and once or twice during the season (when Furman and GSU play each other).

In the 10 years or so since we started our websites, we’ve somehow achieved a sort of respectability with the Southern Conference offices and the coaches of the various teams, so we’ve been kind of accepted as official unofficial media people, which is sorta cool.

The preseason media poll, by the way, picked Furman at #1 and GSU at #2 – which is also sorta cool.

After I got back to Atlanta Tuesday afternoon, I hit Harry’s Market for some groceries and flowers and went over to a friend’s place to make dinner for us (she picked the recipe, I acted the part of chef). I made a mushroom casserole and some peach cobbler, both of which turned out to be quite good. Will definitely be trying the casserole again.

On Wednesday, I left work a bit early and headed over to Alpharetta to strap on the roller blades. Skated about 6 miles without falling (did have one amazing pirouette while attempting a “T-stop”, but managed to keep my balance long enough to sit down on a nearby bench – which is what I was trying to stop for). I brought water with me this time around – a very good thing – and also wore my heart monitor. Interesting thing about that: during the skating itself, my heartrate hung right around 170-175. However, when I first get out of my car at this place, there’s a long gentle downhill slope….so I get to start out my skate by zooming down this thing at ungodly speed. It takes absolutely no effort, but my heartrate immediately after completing the zoom was 179.

Who says terror isn’t great exercise?

Went swimming after my skate and swam some laps and watched television until about 10:00.

Last night, I went to Willie McGee’s to try to reassert my trivia dominance. Wound up in third ($10 in house cash), despite starting out very slowly. A furious 4th-quarter comeback put me in the money – and if the team in first going into the last question had had any cahones at all (it’s a wagering question), I would have leapfrogged them and ended up in second. They bet 1 point on their answer. I bet 20. They got it wrong, I got it right. Final scores: 1st – 110, 2nd – 93, Me – 92. Final question: Who won the ESPY award as the NFL’s best player (Peyton Manning, Indianapolis). I took a wild guess to get it right.

And so we come to today. I need to start a final push to migrate one of my servers tonight (and tomorrow night and probably Sunday night), so I’m taking it easy this morning. Am really hoping to get this server out of the way this weekend, as it’s been a thorn in my side for several months.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, has been Tom’s week in review.

It has been a lazy weekend so far, and I assume it will continue to be one.

I went to the Atlanta Seafood Company on Friday night. Great food and an excellent atsmosphere, which was enhanced by a superb keyboard and bass combo. Had planned on getting a short bite to eat and then maybe going to a movie, but ended up staying there for about three hours.

Made tentative plans to go bowling on Saturday, but when I got home I found one of those “Savvy Shopper” magazines in my mailbox; flipping through it, I noticed an ad for “Classic Movies Under the Stars” at a coffee shop in Historic Norcross (I guess that’s the proper capitalization of the area).

Being the romantic guy that I am, I immediately made plans to take a girlfriend there as a surprise. Also being the klutz that I am, I almost immediately told her about the surprise. She came over to the house, I grilled a couple of burgers, and we headed to Norcross for the show. Got a bottle of wine and drank it on a lovely back patio while watching The Postman Always Rings Twice. Great movie. Great wine. Great company. Great night. After that, we went to an old haunt and played darts and video bowling for a few more hours, and I ended up getting home at around 3 this morning.

Got up at around 10:30 and made plans to go to church and then do some roller blading in Alpharetta. I’d planned to hit the 12:30 service, but forgot that traffic generally gets really bad by that late, so as I got closer to the church, I realized that I was going to be very late. I just went skating instead. Managed to go about 6 miles. Face-planted twice (once while practicing my “T-Stop” and once while trying to walk (instead of skate) down a long hill). Didn’t do any major damage to myself, but I did manage to mildly sprain my wrist and probably should have died of heat stroke. I didn’t realize how dehydrated I’d gotten until I got some Gatorade on the way home and nearly vomitted when it hit my stomach.

Note to self: bring water along the next time you go skating.

After I got home, I listened to an archived sermon from the online version of the church, so I don’t feel too overly guilty about missing the live service.

The plan for tonight is to have dinner at a friend’s and then maybe take a walk and/or swim some laps after it cools down. I’d considered doing some work in the lawn this afternoon, but sitting on my couch is much cooler…and much less work. And, since I managed to vacuum and shampoo the carpets yesterday, I figure I can put the lawn stuff off until tomorrow.

My cats both endorse my position.

What a glorious couple of weeks.

I hit the road for Philadelphia (actually North Wales, PA) on the evening of Wednesday, July 6th, and drove all night, arriving at around 9:30 Thursday morning. After a short morning nap, I spent the next couple of days helping a friend prepare for her neice’s high-school graduation party, meeting and mingling with other members of her family, playing miniature golf and going go-karting with her nephew and one of his friends, and attending the aforementioned party.

I’m sure a feature film will be made to accompany the myriad novels which are sure to be penned about this riveting adventure.

On Sunday morning, I returned to the car and continued my trek to Lake Ahmic.

Screwed up early and ended up in Delaware.

After getting myself pointed north, I drove for the rest of the day and arrived at the Rouse Camp (Ulvik) at around 10:00 on the night of the 10th.

For some reason, the folks already at the camp (Cy, “T”, Taylor, Francis, and Gardner) were still eating, so I joined them for a snack (fondue – quite tasty) before hitting the sack. The first of several typically great Ulvik eats.

Between Sunday night and last Saturday morning, the weather in Magnetawan was nearly perfect (although EXTREMELY hot), and the lot of us (we were later joined by Doug and Shelly and Shelly’s dog Rosie) kept ourselves occupied with tennis, water sports, reading, cards, dominoes, camp projects (pronounced “PROH -jex”) and – of course – eating. Some of the meals that I remember:

Angelhair pasta with basil, garlic, and tomatoes – Francis and Tom
Lasagna – Shelly
Grilled chicken – Gardner and “T”
Roast pork loin – Tom and Doug

Cy and “T” will be heading back to the camp the last week of August (when Karl and Diane can make it), and – at least at this point – I’m cleared to take another vacation week and join them.

I got home LATE last Saturday night (despite the fact that I’d left EARLY Saturday morning), and I still haven’t made up for the lost sleep. Working while exhausted is sort of difficult, but I’ve got plenty to do, which is nice.

Have been roller-blading twice more since returning to Atlanta, and I’m actually getting rather decent at it.