Jason Lawrence, I’ll miss you!

The hubby looked at this photo - among others from the same game - and told me I should get more serious about the photography.

I’m working on it.

Wednesday AM, I hop on a flight to San Francisco.  I will not be wearing flowers in my hair.

I’m a little bummed that I backed out of scheduling extra time in town to explore and take pictures, but let’s face it.  The things I’m most likely to take photos of now don’t stand still in the perfect light of a sunny afternoon.  No, the things I’m most likely to take photos of now are hockey players and, oh I don’t know, crazy UCMB alumni and that band that I hang around with.  Bad lighting, fast movement, ponies. That sort of thing. That’s what I get excited about now.  Taking pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge? YAWN.

I do plan on taking lots of pictures while I’m in San Fran… but not of the scenery. I’m going to get my geek on hardcore. I’m spending two days at the GTD Summit.  (Long time readers will remember my obsession with The David and Getting Things Done.) 

Yup.  Two days of networking with other GTD’ers.  Meeting Steve Leveen (from Levenger!  *squee*) and Guy Kawasaki and Meg Edwards and Eric Mack and all my new little Twitter pals. I’m hoping that there’s a sh’load of photos being taken of me & important people.  I’m hoping I give out a buttload of

self-promotion cards.  And most importantly, I’m hoping that I do crawl far enough out of my shell and do some serious networking.

When I get back, there’s so much more to look forward to:
Hockey East quarterfinals, Instrument, Instrument, Instrument, Instrument, Instrument, Vermont… And I’ve got a birthday and some Twilight making fun of to do crammed in there as well. w00t! I’ve got more of a life this March than I have in several years combined.

I think it’s a good thing I’ve got GTD in my life - it’s going to be hard to juggle all my fun stuff with all my not-so-much-fun stuff. 

Bring. It. On.

Top dawg

Thanks to a BC win last night, and a BU shut out tonight, we are the Hockey East regular season champs.  We’ve also been # 1 in the nation for about 5 weeks now.  It’s a pretty good run for any team.  It’s a great run for this one.

I said, in the beginning, that whatever this team had done during the off-season worked.  Holy crap, did it work.  A few people are thinking we could go all the way and I’m inclined to believe them. I’ve always thought we could go all the way this season.  Hell, at tonight’s game, TONY AMONTE (!!!!! Yes, the Tony Amonte) said we’re going all the way.  I’m afraid to get my hopes up and I don’t want to jinx the team or anything… but I do believe that we have a very good chance of winning it all.  Why not? We’ve won every other tourney we’ve been in… Beanpot, Wells Fargo and the Icebreaker.

Rollheiser, my least favorite goalie this season, got his first collegiate shutout tonight.  Nice.  Very happy for him.  That’s a) the way to redeem yourself and b) an awesome way to end the regular season.

And, of course, tonight was senior night.  I hate the end of the season with a passion.  After watching these kids for 4 years, I get attached.  I can’t help it. It’s what I do. I’m going to miss Jason (J-lo) Lawrence, Brandon (Yip!Yip!Yip!) Yip, Johnny McCarthy, Matty Gilroy, Steve (Smoke) Smolinski, and Chris (Higgy) Higgins.  It’s been a joy watching these boys develop their game over the past 4 years.  I don’t have the words to describe what J-lo, Matty, Johnny and Higgy mean to me.  They are my favorites from this year’s class. Matty especially.

It’s been covered non-stop lately by the national media and I’m a little tired of hearing it over, and over, and over, and over, but, I can’t assume all my readers care enough to google Matt Gilroy and read all the press, so here you go…

Out of all the kids on the Hobey nominee list, Matt Gilroy is the most deserving of being named the Hobey Baker winner.  This kid is a hell of a sportsman and a person.  He was a walk-on.  The only way he made it on the team is because he lied to Parker and said he could play D even though he was a forward. Check his stats; you’d never know he couldn’t play D.  He’s got the character thing down pat, too.  He wears 97 in honor of his little brother Timmy.  Timmy was killed in an accident when they were really young and he had worn 97 when they played youth hockey together.  (Gretzky was #99 so every kid that played around that time wanted to wear 99. Of course, there was only one 99, so the kids/teams improvised.)  Matty promised his mom that he would always wear 97.  When he couldn’t get 97, he’d wear 9 or 7 and his mom would sew the missing number into his uniform. 

I’ve been in, and around, hockey for a long time.  I’ve seen lots of good guys.  I’ve seen lots of bad guys.  I’ve only ever seen something close to this before and that was when PeteyMac’s foster family from Iowa came to a game.  (The trip to Boston was a Make-A-Wish trip for the daughter.  I wish I could remember the rest of the details.  *sigh*)  I think that this team’s success owes a lot to Johnny’s grinding and Matty’s humility.  They were/are the perfect personalities for captains.  (At least as far as I can see.)

I don’t know - we play Maine next week in the quarterfinals.  We beat them twice and tied, I think.  (Too lazy to look up the stats now.)  I’m hoping we can beat them twice now.  After that, I don’t know.  I’m not looking any farther into the future. 

“Hey, hey baby! (ooh-ah!) I wanna know, oh, oh, oh-oh, if you’ll be my girl!”

Holy cow, it really works!

One of my friends is a dog whisperer type person, and I had him come up to the house to work with the four of us.

Apache is my violent problem child.  Arsey’s the stubborn one.  He definitely had his work cut out for him, or so I thought.

He got both dogs under control relatively quickly and squashed my belief that the “Dog Whisperer” tv show is heavily edited to make it look quick / fit it into an hour-long episode.  It’s amazing what you can do with that sort of knowledge.

We’ve been working hard this past week and we’re seeing progress.  Not huge amounts of progress, but progress nonetheless.  More so with Apache than Arsey, but Apache is working stock and he NEEDS to be working.  Even if working means a sit/stay while the doorbell rings.  Anything to help curb his aggression. Arsey is more stubborn and much older, so I figured she might be the harder one to work with. At the same time, though, she’s much better with people so once we can get her even a little more under control, I’ll be pleased. 

We’ve always had them “wait” before they can go in and out of the house.  We’ve added a sit to that and in most cases, we can at least get them to wait before they come inside. I’m sure the sit won’t be too far behind.  Last night, we added the doorbell.  We never got Arsey under control (wicked disappointing), but Apache did several rings very well.  Laying down and staying instead of jumping up and barking.  There was whining and shaking, but I’ll take the whining and shaking down/stay over the barking and attacking of the door area.

My goal is to have them in some sort of decent shape by April so the dog whisperer can come back for a check-up before I (finally) hold my gradjitation party in May. 

I think that’s highly possible and I’m loving watching Apache’s behavior begin to change!

Thank you so much!!!

w00t!

Feeling proud - GA is # 5 in The Google for “boston college sucks!”  *happy dance*

It’s the little things…

Just messin’ around

Still struggling with the redesign on this site.  Don’t know why the same code I’ve written a bazillion times is refusing to work the way it’s supposed to.  Feelin’ miiiiiighty stupid.  This is probably why I never really got into doing this for a living… so much easier to do it on the side, for myself.  No pressure.  No headaches.  No demanding clients - oh wait.  I’m pretty demanding.  Moving on.

Instead of fighting with the code, I’ve been fooling around with some of my Instrument photos.  The idea is to create a CD cover for their new EP… for my copy.  I’m not really one to share my crap graphic design skills with the world. (Unless, of course, it’s on/for one of my sites. *grin*) I’ve done several different versions and I’m not really happy with any of them.  That said, this one is my favorite, but I’m not sure why. 

I’m just really glad that no one’s expecting me to actually put those out in the world or anything.

I suppose I’ve done enough stalling for the night.  It’s time for round seven of Tam vs the “float:right”.  GRRRRR!