You'd Think...

You'd think I could BLOG more often, but I was in NYC for five weeks and my weekends were precious and I didn't have much time in NYC to BLOG.

...so I didn't.

Well, Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat, please put a penny in the old man's hat....

We're traveling to Chicago, IL on Christmas day. Apparently, what that means is we must therefore need celebrate Christmas on Saturday morning (the 24th) rather than on Sunday. According to my master and owner (the Evil Overlord, my wife Barb), we'll be leaving for Chicago *early* Sunday morning.

Of course, this means we'll have to miss church on Sunday. I'd probably blow off church anyway. I'd just sit in my easy chair, "I've got chocolate in my stocking, I can't go to church today."

I learned a lot about NYC. I now know that Uptown is a direction. From Penn Station, you go Uptown to Times Square and again Uptown to Grand Central Station. Hence, you'll go Downtown the other way.

Last Thursday, the 15th, the NYC MTA was talking about going on strike. This particular week, I was staying at The New York Helmsley, which is really close to our client's site. Hence, I would easily walk from the hotel to the site.

The MTA strike was on my mind anyway. At midnight, Thursday night, the MTA would decide to strike or not -- so they said. They didn't actually strike until Tuesday of this week.

At about 11pm I went to bed in my hotel room, but I checked the t.v. first. No strike. They were still in talks.

I woke up at 2am Friday morning and turned on the t.v. I had to find out if the MTA was striking -- still in talks.

Then, I dreampt I was in NYC and my red Expedition was somehow magically transported from the parking garage in Albany to NYC. I remember thinking in my dream, "How did my car arrive here? Oh well, doesn't really matter. Let's drive...."

In my dream, I was trying to get out of the city in my Expidition. I drove, got in this big long line of cars to cross a bridge out of Manhattan, got lost, crossed back into Manhattan and was back in the same line but it was three times longer than before.

That was my dream. I woke up at 6am and checked the t.v. again. This time, they were still in talks.

I woke up at 8:30 am for the day. They'd decided to strike on these two token bus lines that no one really used much anyway. I was able to Escape to Albany Friday evening. My company sent someone else down to NYC this week (five weeks was enough for me for a while). He got to experience the MTA strike.

Christmas Eve day we're all gonna go over my sister Karen's house. We do a gift exchange. This year, we have $20.00 gifts. We put names in a hat and pull them out. You're not allowed to get anyone from your own family.

Our family got both of my brother-in-laws and the husband of my cousin. One brother-in-law is an avid golfer -- as is the cousin's husband. Fortunately for me, I found boxes of Topflite (tm) golf balls this past Spring for like $1.00 per box of 18 balls.

That's a really good deal. Only a buck! They were on sale at Wal-Mart. Some guy there was buying like 10 boxes. I figured I'd pick up two boxes with exactly these two gentlemen in mind. I knew they liked golf.

Fortunately again, we got them for our gift giving drawing!

I told my mom I was giving them the $1.00 box of balls each for their $20.00 gifts. Mind you, the boxes are easily worth $20.00 regardless of the fact I only paid $1.00.

My mom's like, "You should get them each a bottle of wine or something also along with the boxes of balls."

I'm like, "No! They're getting their '$20.00 Gift' and that's that!"

Now... If I'd gotten the wine for a buck also... maybe.

Geesh! You should never tell your mom things.

I got my other brother-in-law a book on local bike trails. He's a really avid biker. I had this 30% off coupon for Borders books that I received via email somehow, so the $17.00 book cost me less than $13.00.

Gee. I hope none of them read my BLOG.