An Arizona Cheesehead's Thoughts

Pirate Rick sent an email earlier this week announcing the monthly poker home game. My first thought was, "Cool!" However, as the really long work days piled up, I decided to pass on the game. The thought of going home and logging couch time was more appealing than playing cards with the boys. Yes, I realize how sad and pathetic that sounds. It was that kind of week, though. As Friday afternoon went on, the lure of the chips started calling me. Then, I saw the updated list of players and more of my buds had signed up which made it even more appealing. At about 5PM, I said to myself, "What the hell" and decided to go. I wasn't exactly greeted warmly. There were several calls of "The Bully is here, look out!" And, there was some debate about wanting to play at my table to start. Actually, everyone was really cool and I was immediately happy that I had decided to play. We had a good group at our table and started playing a pretty friendly game. Apparently

We had our weekly Integration Team meeting on Friday. Nearly a dozen of us cram into a conference room for two+ hours. Fun...well, not really. Anywhoo, right before the meeting started I looked down to the other end of the table and saw... one of the guys trimming his nails! I immediately voiced my opinion (since I am so not shy) that personal grooming has no place in a meeting. He didn't care about my opinion, or that others shared it, and finished trimming then got up to dump the clippings in the garbage. Come on, who thinks that's acceptable behavior?

My friend Tkay is going to walk in the Race For The Cure with the Desert Shark Parrot Heads. If you can spare a few bucks to support her efforts that would be cool. You can go here to make a donation.

Well, my Yahoo! NCAA Tourney picks are a bust. I had Kansas winning the whole thing so I'm pretty much screwed. However, I'm Aces in my other tourney through no effort of my own. Here's how it works. For a $10 buy in, we each got two randomly assigned teams, one on each side of the bracket. If you had the favorite, you advanced if that team tied or beat the point spread. If you had the underdog and the favorite failed to beat or tie the spread, you moved on to the next round with the favorite now becoming your team. The payout is $160 for First, $80 for second and $40 for Third and Fourth. Sugar Daddy sent me a text message on Saturday whining that it was unfair that I had two teams left in the Elite Eight as he only had one. Well, he's even more bitter now that I have two in the final four and he's completely out! As a matter of fact, he said he hated me today because of it. I quite enjoyed hearing that. I'm guaranteed an $80 payout at the moment. Addin

I started watching several new shows in the past few weeks. I guess I thought I had some time on my hands. Not sure why I thought that... The Riches is on FX and stars Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver. They play travellers (think Irish gypsies) who assume the identity of a rich, but dead, couple while on the run from their clan. It's a really good show. Great writing and brilliantly acted. Andy Barker, P.I. stars Andy Richter (one funny dude) as an accountant who, due to mistaken identity, takes on private investigative assignments. The first episode was a little uneven but the second was laugh out loud funny. Tony Hale of the late, great Arrested Development is an absolute riot. Raines has Jeff Goldblum as a homicide detective who sees dead people. Sound familiar? The first episode stole lots from A Sixth Sense . I had a DVR mishap so I didn't get the second episode but I'm willing to go back for the third mostly because I think Goldblum is a really interesting

Our last team building exercise was a simple exercise. Each person wrote down the answers to three questions then we took turns reading the answers aloud. I got it from the Field Guide to The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. The questions were: 1. Where did you grow up? 2. How many kids in your family? 3. What was the biggest challenge you had while growing up? A couple people were very short and abrupt with their answers which I think says something about them despite their not opening up. Most of the group shared some pretty personal stuff and a lot of it no one knew. Some of the things that were shared by several different groups of people: broken/blended/single parent homes, kids of military personnel, lots of moving around, several lower income backgrounds, being bored with school or having ADD and living in Yuma, AZ (of all places!). Simple as it was, I think it did a good job of bringing us a little closer together which was the ultimate goal of the exercise.

I just finished watching the season finale of BSG. Wow. That's all I can say without giving away how frakking awesome it was.

Lucky for me, I'm Irish (partly) for the entire year! The plan for St Patty's Day was to go to Tucson with The Babes and hit a place called O'Shaugnessy's with Norene and a bunch of friends. Unfortunately, The Babes had to cancel so I headed down on my own though they did send a bunch of beads and "Kiss Me I'm Irish" sashes with me and we thought about them the whole time. I could write a whole diatribe about how bad traffic was between Phoenix to Tucson but I'll spare you. Let's just say it was really, really bad. So bad, that I got off the freeway early at Speedway which takes me past the hated school, U of A. Generally, I do my very best to avoid that. Norene in her St. Patty Day's Finest. Norene came up with a great plan for our festivities. The bar was a few miles from her house but she decided it would be prudent to take a cab. Brilliant! We called a company and they said the driver would be there in about 20 minutes. I told her to write

We're now experiencing our two to three weeks of spring here in Phoenix. That's the time it goes from still really cold at night to blistering hot in the day. It seems like it does it overnight, actually. While the weather is pleasant, I've been opening my patio door and letting the air flow through the screen door. It's nice to be able to air out the house. Here's the scary part. The last time I had the patio door open, I forgot to reset the safety bar. That was days ago... I don't know how the local axe murdered could have missed the fact that he could have gotten into my place with just a little jimmying of the patio door lock. From there, it would take next to nothing to get in my house and chop me into tiny bits. I can only guess that he's on vacation, torturing co-eds since it's spring break. Whew, I feel like I dodged a bullet on this one!

Sugar Daddy bought me an iPod mini for Christmas a few years back. It's served me well but I felt compelled to replace it this week. I had a couple of reasons. First, it's only 4GB which is about 1,000 songs. I have way more than that in my library (all legally purchased, too!) so I have to be selective on what I load. Second, the battery doesn't last as long as I would like it to. Less than 8 hours on average, I'd guess. The biggest reason for the replacement urge, however, is that I'm in charge of the tunes for the club's booth at the Salsa Challenge this weekend. That means I need to have about 10 hours of music set up (yes, I will be repeating some tunes since you can't go all day with playing Margaritaville just once) and there was no way my battery was going to make it. OK, I also just really, really wanted a new one. So, I checked out my options online. I could have gotten a nano for $149 but it was still just 4GB. It's way smaller than my

That gang and I went to the Sting game Friday night. It was a bit of 'worlds colliding' for me since two guys from work went with us. They had a good time, though, and nothing too embarrassing on anyone's part happened. I thought the Sting didn't play very well and Dan had a quiet game but they pulled out a big win to keep second place secure. Sunday, I had the Atlanta race recorded and couldn't watch it until after dinner with the family. Shorty tried to tell me who won but I did the "La, la, la, I'm not listening" thing so he didn't tell me. Steven, however, yelled out "Jimmie Johnson" from the other room. I didn't believe him. At least, I didn't believe him until the last restart of the race when Jimmie zoomed past Matt Kenseth then ran down Tony Stewart with 3 laps to go. I have to give Stewart some props for not taking Jimmie out when Jimmie blocked him after the pass. That was a class move. Two weeks in a row with a

Sugar Daddy sent this to me and it's funny on soooooo many levels!

I just filled out my bracket for the club's Yahoo NCAA Tournament. It's pretty clear to me that I don't know much about the current state of college hoops. I used to, though. With my compulsive behavioral tendencies, I tend to become consumed with whatever sport I'm currently following. I've gone through lots of them: pro hockey, college hoops, pro hoops, professional (beach) and college (team) volleyball, pro baseball (major and minor league), pro and college football, professional tennis, soccer (Ireland in the World Cup). Currently, it's lacrosse, NASCAR and poker taking up most of my time. Back in my college hoops phase, I watched lots of games. Lots and lots. I knew most of the major teams and players. I even watched the NBA draft (boring!). To tell you how long ago it was, I was watching when the Suns drafted Dan Majerle and I knew the folks who booed him would regret that since I'd seen him play lots of time. I looked it up tonight and that was 1988

I hope Pat Reilly doesn't sue me for that headline since he actually trademarked the word. What a great race in Vegas! OK, not for the drivers because the track was too slick, the tires too hard and there were lots of crashes. But great for me because Jimmie Won, Jimmie Won, Jimmie Won! Did I mention that Jimmie won? For the third time in a row at Vegas, too. Sweet! Lewie was at the race (maybe I can make it next year) and he told me he was happy with the results but it would have been better if they had finished in numerical order (Gordon came in second). I think they did come in numerically, though. Jimmie's my #1 favorite driver and he finished first. Gordon finished second and he's, well, he's not my #2 driver so I guess it didn't quite work out numerically after all. If Elliott Sadler had come in second, it would have worked out perfectly for me. On a side note, is it just me or does it seem like during every race someone says something about Robby Gordo

I know posting's been light lately...here's why. Last week, we had folks in from the company we just bought for meetings. They were very productive meetings but there were lots of late nights at work getting ready and trying to catch up on stuff that got ignored while we were meeting. Then on Friday, I went down with a bug. Down pretty hard, too. I felt like crap for about 48 hours. Here's how bad it was...I didn't even turn on my computer the whole time! That's got to be a record. At least it didn't hit me until after our annual spring training game. I did manage to sneak out early with some of the boys to catch a game. Though, it wasn't my whole boy gang. One of them apparently thought it was more important to go on a business trip than to go a game with the Princess. Despite the fact that the Princess made the plans for everyone weeks ago. He will pay, oh yes, he will. I feel a lot sharper today, and more voluble, so I hope to get back to my usu

You Are 65% Left Brained, 35% Right Brained The left side of your brain controls verbal ability, attention to detail, and reasoning. Left brained people are good at communication and persuading others. If you're left brained, you are likely good at math and logic. Your left brain prefers dogs, reading, and quiet. The right side of your brain is all about creativity and flexibility. Daring and intuitive, right brained people see the world in their unique way. If you're right brained, you likely have a talent for creative writing and art. Your right brain prefers day dreaming, philosophy, and sports. Are You Right or Left Brained? I lifted this one from Tkay , too. Together, we're 100 and 100 which is a nice way to say we're complete opposites.

Your Wrath Quotient: 40% Sometimes you get really angry, but nothing out of the norm. While you may wish someone harm, it's pretty unlikely that you'd actually do anything about it. How Much Wrath Do You Have? I got this from Tkay who is apparently more wrathful than I.

Your Personality is Somewhat Rare (ENFP) Your personality type is enthusiastic, giving, cautious, and loyal. Only about 8% of all people have your personality, including 9% of all women and 6% of all men You are Extroverted, Intuitive, Feeling, and Perceiving. How Rare Is Your Personality? Got this from El Capitan to amuse you until I can find time to do a real post again.

I got this test from Shannon. I played three times and averaged only 1,021. That's with a high score of 3,050 so that gives you an idea of badly I fared on the other two rounds.

Our work birthdays generally involve cake and ice cream. We're pretty traditional that way. Most folks know that I am an absolute frosting fiend. I have no interest in the ice cream and the cake is just there to hold the frosting together. So, I usually get the piece with the most frosting, whether it's a corner or one with big flowers on it. I will give the biggest frosting piece up to the birthday boy or girl if they share my addiction. I'm a giver that way. Plus, it is their birthday... Probably the nicest guy in the department was handing out the cake and ice cream and he put a plate down in front of me. It had ice cream and a piece of cake from the middle...without one extra bit of decoration. No writing, even! Just a pathetically thin layer of white frosting. I said, "Um, no, that is not a Kathy piece." Poor guy. Here he was trying to be all helpful and I was being a snot. I felt bad. But not for long. As soon as the words were out of my mout

We had a birthday celebration at work yesterday. Usually, we play some sort of game and we take turns planning the event. The guy in charge this time brought in cards from a game called Loaded Questions. How it worked was that one person picked a question to ask everyone who wrote down their answers. Then, the asker had to guess which response belonged to which person. It was quite interesting and we learned some stuff about each other. I love that. One question was, If you could change one thing in history, what would it be? There were three 9-11 answers, WWII, Hurricane Katrina, Hitler, Iraq, the repeal of Prohibition (a completely facetious answer since it came from my Rock Bottom buddy) and George Bush. I wish I had thought of the latter - I went with Hitler. Sugar Daddy's answer was "nothing should be changed". That led to a short discussion about not stepping on the butterfly. Another question was, If you could be the CEO of any company, what would it be? Be