Kiwanis is coined from a Native American term "Nunc Kee-wanis"

So yesterday afternoon the husband and I went back to the county park and did the lake loop as a run. Funny- the husband enticed me with the line we won't do a hard pace. He is lucky I love him because he totally fucking lied! He led the run and even though it was only three miles it felt like 5 and I was dying by the en of the run. I asked him what the pace was and he said 7:45. I was more like 8:00 as I did not keep to his pace. I have to say though it was a great run through the woods and I can see how my older brother enjoyed cross country running. The husband ran cross country too and admitted when we got back in the car that that was one of the harder runs he had done due to all the hills.

Last night we made dinner for the parents. The husband was in charge of the main course, MP had the sides and I had the dessert. The husband crushed it on the roast pork tenderloin and salad, MP made mashed cauliflower with bleu cheese and sauteed leeks and I made a simple French peasant dessert- Black Mission fig and raspberry galette. Mom and dad were seriously impressed.

This morning there was a heavy frost when we got up. I and MP were hoping we would have had some snow as up north there usually is some by Thanksgiving. The husband was glad there was not as he was driving back with the kids while MP and I took the train back.

The train ride was ok although ten minutes behind schedule. I of course had a baseball cap on. It was from the Kiwanis Club in the hometown. Dad had helped out at the annual Turkey Trot race and I stole it from him. MP and I basically played cards the entire time and then I read the GQ issue with hot Chris Pine on the cover. My favorite article was the one about Ayn Rand and how her true ardent believers are assholes akin to fundamentalist Christians.

Tonight we had dinner with PS and SP. The great news from them is they are expecting their first child come May.

Tomorrow night we are hosting the husband's book club. I will be assuming my usual role of hired help- keeping wine glasses full, setting the table, serving food, etc. So tonight I had to make the dessert for them. I fell back on my usual old stand by- which is seasonally appropriate- apple pie.

I have had an interesting, ongoing email discussion with Ragnar and JW over the past week or so about the whole health care debate and some good points have been brought up. Ragnar- and I have to agree- made the point that it is for the common good of society as a whole to have a healthy populace. He also commented in a round about way that any good capitalist would want a healthy populace as a source of labor and a source of buyers of their goods and services. Very Vulcan in the logic. The sticking point was when I asked what makes health care more of a right than housing or a job. That set him off and I felt like I- and anyone who disagreed with the current plan or the idea health care is a right- was getting painted as a person of low or no morals and possibly limited intellect. I responded as such and then was off to mom and dad's for Thanksgiving. Ragnar responded but I prefer reading and replying on something other than my crackberry. It got me thinking though that that seems to be a big problem with the Democrats and liberals- if you ask why you get attacked; the old if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. It also sort of came across as condescending in the manner of don't question me, I know what is best for you and everyone else, just do as I say. I can see how most of the middle of America can get pissed off at that seeming attitude. It can appear elitist.

JW had some great points as well. I had commented that capitalism has never been about the fair allocation of resources but the most efficient allocation of resources. He is of the view that the current system for health care is neither fair nor efficient. I really can't argue with that either.

I guess I just don't think the current proposal will address either fairness nor efficiency. I feel like there is a rush to change it because it is neither right now but replacing it with something that does not address both issues just leaves us in the same spot we are in now. Instead of profit seekers making decisions we will have the government making them for us. I also wonder if there is not a large portion of the populace who does not want to have to make a choice. If you don't make a choice that means someone else will and when something goes wrong you have someone else to blame. Whereas if you had to make the choice yourself and made a bad choice you couldn't blame anyone other than yourself. Pass the buck- don't accept responsibility.

No pool tomorrow morning or dojo. Tuesday morning the husband is off to Miami with ST and PJ for four days. He needs a vacation and some me time so I hope he has fun and relaxes. Even with him gone it is shaping up to be a busy week. I imagine tomorrow we'll also see the real reaction to the whole Dubai World fiasco since Friday was a half day for the markets. Oh joy...

Luxembourg is not part of central Europe

The past week has been fun and busy. Work was relatively slow Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday was slow but I was leaving early to catch the train upstate with MP. Of course then Dubai decides to try and get a standstill on its debt payments- that is a big whoops.

MP and I had a blast on the train ride up to mom and dad's house. We had a compartment which was real cool. It was very European like and we got to watch the Hudson go by as we rode up to Albany. We also had dinner included so we got to go to the dining car. The man in charge suggested we sit next to each other as we'd be sharing the table with other guests. We decided against that and sat across from each other. Thankfully we were joined by another couple who felt the same way and brought their own wine. We had a great time chatting and dining with them and we drank A LOT of wine. By the time we pulled into to Syracuse we were bombed, lol.

Thanksgiving was awesome. Mom made a real simple meal but it was amazing. We had dinner at 3 PM and it was very nice.

Yesterday MP, the husband and I went to the little county park and did the three mile loop around the lake there. MP was like a little girl as she was back in her home town. I could not believe the number of Canadian geese that were on the lake and they were loud.

Last night we took mom and dad out to dinner at the local restaurant they choose. We had a blast and met up with some of MP's friends from high school who were home for Thanksgiving as well. AB- my best friend since we were 4- also met up with us for some beers as he too was in town for Thanksgiving.

We ended up back in mom and dad's kitchen for some night caps. AB was recounting how he and his wife had just been in Italy for their 15th anniversary. That led to a discussion about Europe in general when MP made the comment Luxembourg was in central Europe. Of course out came the laptop and wiki to prove her wrong.

Today the husband and I are going to go for a run and then we are making dinner for mom and dad.

MP and I are taking the train back tomorrow morning but we will keep it sober this time.

It's polite to engage dinner guests in conversation

This was a pretty great birthday weekend.

Yesterday we spent the day getting ready for our dinner guests. I and the boys went to the grocery store and did the grocery shopping. I also then finished hanging the art as ST had stopped by Thursday and given the husband his professional opinion (he is a former museum curator so knows what he is taking about) about the placement of the art we had in the home. I also got to take a nap as Friday night I let the boys stay up until midnight so we were all a bit tired.

The husband made one of his best meals ever for dinner. He did a leg of lamb, this great onion gratin, couscous and salad. The best part was he made the boys look at and touch the leg of lamb and the hip joint on it. They were kind of freaked out about it but they are still boys and thought it was cool, lol.

PF and DR came over for dinner. I had prepped everyone involved- PF because he can and often does use colorful language and the boys that they would have to actually talk with our dinner guests.

The irony is that DR was actually the one who used colorful language first and the boys were complete chatter boxes the entire dinner. It helped that our dinner guests and the boys both love South Park so they were talking about it all night and PF told my oldest which episode he thought was the funniest and had to watch- which he promptly did on the laptop.

I knew the dinner was a complete success when my oldest told the husband the meal was great and told our dinner guests they were by far the best dinner guests we have ever had over.

Dessert was awesome as the husband went and gotten a cake from this old school Italian bakery in Hoboken. I had known about it for years and always thought it was great. Come to find out the place actually has a reality t.v. show based on it. The cake was a big hit too.

The boys again stayed up until midnight because everyone was having fun.

Today we all went into the city and had lunch with MP at her apartment. She made us meatloaf, mashed sweet potatoes and broccoli. My oldest loved the mashed sweet potatoes and when MP offered the left overs to take home he jumped at it. The boys also loved her cats and thought they were great.

We then headed on over to the Met and took in the Art of the Samurai. It was pretty damn cool and the boys thought it was really neat. My youngest got a little replica samurai helmet and the oldest decided he wanted something else. So of course he picked a musical snow globe? I was a bit taken aback but thought what the hell, if that is what he liked at the Met so be it.

Both of them slept the entire ride to their mom's house- that's what happens when you stay up until midnight two nights in a row I guess.

I was stunned at how much the Joint Congressional Finance Committee beat up on Turbo Tax Timmy last week. He seriously got abused and on television. Don't get me wrong I think the guy should be fired as he is the one who signed off on AIG's counter parties getting paid one hundred cents on the dollar.

This week is shaping up to be a bit busy in front of Thanksgiving. Speaking of Thanksgiving I of course hit it up on wiki and one the things that made me laugh is apparently big, fat Rush Limbaugh says the real reason we need to celebrate it is because it was the turning point from whence the Pilgrims, who were dying because of their communal living system, gave up and decided to turn to a free market system and that is what turned the Massachusetts Bay colony around.

Subtrefuge

So The Equalizer died this week. I loved that show. I also saw that Ken Ober died too. I have fond memories of watching Remote Control in college and thought that show was awesome.

I had forgotten about Sugar Babies but the candy bowl on the desk had a bunch of them and I came close to overdosing on them.

I am actually almost done with my Christmas shopping which is pretty damn close to a record for me. One of the things I got was a family game for us t play. I just thought the name of the game sounded too good to not buy-Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magic Carrot.

I had the day off today as I had a parent-teacher conference for my youngest son. It went as expected- very well. The boys had a half day due to the conferences so I picked them up right after the conference and brought them home. My oldest showed me his report card and it was awesome. He missed honor roll by two points and was so proud of his grades that he felt emboldened enough to ask for picture messaging for his phone, lol.

Last night I got totally blindsided. Earlier in the week the boss asked me to set up drinks with my brother and his boss as we will be doing business with their firm due to an acquisition they made recently. So we get to the restaurant to meet my bro and his boss and go into the room there and bam!- a surprise birthday party for me. It was organized by one of my oldest friends who came in from Chicago. It seems he had been planning this for two months and I was impressed with the number of people involved and that it was kept quiet for two months. I paid for it today and the parent-teacher conference was painful.

The husband went into the city for dinner and a movie with Ragnar. I promised the boys they could stay up until midnight tonight and tomorrow we are having PF and DR over for dinner. Sunday we are having lunch with MP and taking the boys to the Met to see The Art of the Samurai.

Test

So I saw last night I can post via email and thought I'd give it a try.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

He strayed off topic alot

Sunday we took the boys to Grand Central Terminal. We took the PATH in from Hoboken and holy crap there was a serious hottie the husband and I both noticed. He looked like an older, much bigger version of Taylor Lautner.

I may have incorrectly called it Grand Central Station earlier but am too lazy to look at my earlier posts. It is a terminal because it is the end of the Central Line. A station is only a stop along the line.

Grand Central started out as a depot and trains were not allowed below 42nd Street because of the steam engines.

The tour guide had a lot more usless information. We were more interested in going to the Whispering Gallery, seeing the building and asking about the history of the building not about the Vanderbilts and Washington Irving. He was not good with dates, names or reasons why certain things were done the way they were. Both boys were visibly bored- at least the husband I knew they were.

The Whispering Gallery was very cool and we all had fun in it. Of course though the guide could not explain the acoustics and what made it work.

As soon as we finished the tour my youngest blurted out "That guy strayed off topic a lot." My oldest then added "And he had a pony tail!" We then walked back tot he PATH, the husband went off to the gym and the boys and I went home. They both napped the entire drive back to their mom's house.

I am seriously concerned the proponents of radical Islam are winning. I say tht when I read that the guys who made the movie 2012 had no problems showing the Vatican, images of Christ, Tibetan monasteries, and other significantly religious symbols getting destroyed but they were afraid to show The Kabba getting demolished for fear they would be put under a fatwa similar to Salman Rushdie.

The whole thing with the Fort Hood shooting. The government is completely afraid to suggest or even intimate that Major Hasan's religion may have played a role in his shooting spree. Funny how when an abortion clinic is bombed the media and government have no problems pointing out the criminal's Christianity.

I have been walking over to the Hoboken Terminal and ting the PATH from there because the eye candy is just so much better. Barclays boy I have seen a often and he is pretty damn cute.

Speaking of Barclays they had a research piece out informing people that there will be some FASB changes to rules 166 and 167; said changes could cause some serious issues for the banks yet again.

I have been watching The Prisoner on AMC and have to say it is pretty good and totally whacked out.

The city disappeared

The past week was fairly busy. As of Monday the husband became a man of leisure. He worked for a large hedge fund that was well known and has now become a bit infamous. I told him to enjoy the rest of the year and the holidays as no one in the business is hiring right now anyways. The good thing is he does not have to go through the whole COBRA bullshit. I already have the employee and family plan for my insurance at work so I can just add him on and it costs me nothing. I checked with HR too and there is no additional tax cost or penalty since we are civilly unionized in New Jersey and the company supports all families who work for them no matter how they are made up.

I cannot believe Thanksgiving has not even happened yet and every frackin' store and mall has got their Christmas stuff up already.

The remnants of Ida have completely blanketed the city today in clouds and normally we have an amazing night time view of the entire skyline from the GWB to Battery Park. Not tonight.

Tomorrow the four of us are off to NC to take our guided tour of Grand Central Terminal. It should be fun and I know the boys are looking forward to seeing as many of the places as possible from The Night Tourist.

Seth Macfarlane is kind of cute

So yesterday we went into the city for the wedding reception. It was a lot of fun and we got to see some friends from the beach we have not seen since early in the summer. My '70s porn stache was a big hit. We drank a lot of champagne too and had fun.

Today we had brunch with one of the husband's girlfriends at the Short Hills Mall. I new what was going to happen afterwards and it ended up me suffering through a day of window shopping. Actually the husband did buy some new dress shirts and dress socks. We also got my oldest a Family Guy daily desk calendar and an origami daily desk calendar for my youngest as Christmas gifts.

We got home and I took a bunch of stuff to the storage space and then hit the grocery store as we are having JD and JW over for the husband's awesome meatloaf. Nap time after that.

It looks like JD and JW are moving into our building. We are psyched for having them as our neighbors.

This week should be interesting as I see the health plan got passed. I was surprised as I read somewhere that the Dems made a last minute concession on the abortion issue.

George Eads is so fucking hot, lol. We have been watching CSI all day. I remember him from the t.v. show Savannah. The husband has officially put him on our it doesn't count as adultery list. I approve and hope I get him first.

Psyched for the live Family Guy comedy show tonight.

A quiet Saturday

So the boss was out sick for the end of the week and I got stuck doing some of his management crap- I am soo glad I am not management. The one good thing is I finished one of the tickets he was working and he is gonna be bummed- it is an illiquid piece of crap that he had for two weeks.

I am totally psyched for the Droid. I have the wireless network that has no bars in more places currently and am fed up with it. Once my contract is up in the spring I am switching. I am most psyched about the Droid because I see it can support Outlook Corporate Exchange which means I can stay with one phone and have the IT guys at work overlay my corporate email on my own cell. The oldest son wants to move to the can you hear me now network so it will all work out well. He also wants to get an ENV Touch but I looked at the Samsung Rogue and think he may actually like that one better. Who knows.

Last night I actually went to the dojo- Kobra Kai never die!- to make up for some classes I had missed. Kick boxing was ok, I did do well against a black belt but I had height and reach on her so she really couldn't get close enough to me. The green belt though was fast as shit and could kick high enough to tag the back of my head- which is illegal. The second class kicked my ass. It was just a core class but it was stations and there were 5 of them and you spent 4 minutes at each one and you had to cycle through the stations twice. Let's just say my shoulders and legs are killing me and I forgot how much jumping rope makes my caves sore.

Tonight the husband and I are going into the city for a cocktail reception for friends of the husband. They got married I guess this afternoon and the reception is this evening. We are probably going to grab dinner afterwards but no clue as to where yet.

Tomorrow we'll go for a run and we have brunch plans with one of the husband's girlfriends.

We were all excited because we thought JD and JW were going to be our neighbors. They looked at apartments in our building, found one and decided to take it. They signed the lease and then got to the pet rider only to find out their dog is not allowed. That totally harshed our gig. We are having them over for dinner tomorrow night though- the husband is making his meatloaf again.

Ashley is such a bitch

I haven't written all week because I wanted finish reading the latest installment of The Wheel of Time. I have to say even at close to 800 pages it was a great book and an improvement over the last three books in the series. The best part though is I was bringing the book into the office with me (I was reading on the PATH) and left it on my desk. My secret man crush noticed the book and commented about the 12th book finally being out. I was taken aback and he informed me he had read the series up to book 6 because his brother recommended it to him. He then told me about another series I might like and should check out. He secretly wants me...

Halloween was busy for us. I went down to central Jersey for my youngest son's bowling birthday party. I was not expecting to have to participate but I got shanghaied into it. I crushed them all and won three games! I rock at bowling. I had fun too. Meanwhile the husband was driving out to his mom's house to drop more stuff off in her crawl space. We both got home around the same time. We had no plans for the night other than watching The Exorcist, ordering in pizza and relaxing. We did end up going out though to meet up with CC for drinks at a bar. We had fun and we all agreed that there are certain Halloween costumes that should be outlawed for gay men: Peter Pan, devils, vampires and priests just to name some. We also agreed that any form of drag is acceptable especially Cher.

On the way home on the PATH we ended up sitting next to these two girls who did nothing but reinforce Jersey stereotypes. One was dressed as a cowgirl and the other as a policewoman. Apparently they were not happy with their friend Ashley as she punched one of them in the back of the head and used all the cocaine the other bought. These two were going on and on and very loud. I finally had to interject myself into the conversation agreeing that Ashley is a total bitch and she should have her ass kicked. The husband of course was horrified at what I did.

Sunday was a nice lazy day. the husband decided to make meatloaf, I made mashed potatoes and we invited Ragnar over for dinner. It was a nice evening and an awesome dinner.

Monday I got my ass kicked at the dojo and came home with a few abrasions. It was interesting at work the next day as I got questioned about it and told them the husband forgot the rule about using an open hand when hitting.

Funny how the truth about the supposed economic recovery is now coming out. The whole notion of "jobs saved is now being shown to be complete bullshit. the best line in the article I read was the whole point is to create jobs not count them; the government is failing on both as they are not creating any and then not counting them properly either.

The OMB chief Orszag is finally now admitting that deficits are dangerous and unsustainable. Well duh! I guess better late than never is a start.

This weekend we don't have the boys and we are actually going to a wedding reception in the city.