Saturday, April 14, 2007

Time To Hang The Sign

This past week went zooming by so quickly, I don't think I even heard the, "Whooshhh!" Did anybody else?

In the interest of avoiding the embarrassment of posting back-to-back Sunday Squibs with nothing in between but background, I figured I would use this space to post the following lame—but completely acceptable from my perspective—explanation for the dead calm around Ton-Fifty-ONE as of late.

The last several days at work were some of my busiest and most brain-frazzling of my year, as they are every year. We put together a 60-page commemorative program for a local sports hall of fame banquet each spring, and with all the award winners and bios and enshrinees and advertisers and etc., it's like one big puzzle, with pieces sporadically walking in the door over a period of a couple months.

And I shouldn't really toot my own horn, but what the hell...it's my blog, right? Here it comes: Guess who's in charge of puzzle piece organization and page layout and book design and overall "gotta make it look somewhat professionally done"ness? (Toooot!!)

This week, all those puzzle pieces finally came together into one pretty good-looking book. Everything that needs a spot has one, and there are once again 60 pages in the book (for printing and binding purposes on 11x17 paper, your page total has to be a mutiple of four. And if it's not, then you need to imaginatively "create" extra pages, or scrunch two down into one, or whatever.)

So while the banquet isn't until next week, the book is officially out of my hands, and metric tons of stress have been unloaded off of my shoulders. And it feels soooo good. And I'm tired.

I've got to rejuvenate quickly, however, because in a few short days I leave for a four-day weekend in Vegas. (and ask me how many times I'm going to be thinking about my blog...or my job, for that matter...while I'm out there. go ahead, ask me. that's right...zero. which is coincidentally the exact same number of poker tournaments I'm going to win, slot machines that are going to spit more than a handful of coins at me, and "dates" I'm going to acquire on a rent-me-by-the-hour basis.) (that...was one long long parenthetical aside.)

It's been quiet for a week, and it'll be quiet for one more. And for that, I apologize. I'll be back, though...perhaps with a dozen blog posts filled with tales from Sin City, because ya know...the whole, "What Happens In Vegas, Stays In Vegas," slogan might make for good commercial marketing. But what happens in Vegas almost has to make for good grist for the blogger mill, as well, don't you think?

For now, I've got shit to do, and not a lot of time in which to do it. And I've got a couple columns to churn out, too. And my brain is still a little more than slightly frazzled. I need to recharge. So I'm...


"In Vegas, I got into a long argument
with the man at the roulette wheel
over what I considered to be
an odd number."
—Steven Wright

5 comments:

  1. NICE!!! Needless to say I hope you good kids have a good time.

    And it goes w/o saying that you should behave (relatively speaking of course, it's Vegas Baby!) so as to ensure you don't end up burried in the desert with broken knee caps...because Draft Festivis is the following Saturday and we need someone there to defend Millen's picks!!!

    Have a good trip buddy!!!

    On a completely different note, my 99% of the time useless membership to BMG had one of their 55% off no shipping (I once had a lengthy "discussion" with them on how you can charge shipping & handling for EACH CD in a DOUBLE CD!!!??? It's one freak'n unit, not two???...), which is the only way consider their prices for music that is at least a year old, so I picked up the one Hoge CD they had, Blackbird On A Lonely Wire...NICE!!!

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  2. BMG has Hoge in its inventory?? Wow...they're a lot cooler than I remember them being. I feel like a horrible human being that I didn't get it to you before you had to go and actually pay money for it. But I applaud you for supporting a phenomenal up-and-comer.

    I promise I won't get buried in the desert, unless I catch them dealing off the bottom of the deck and start calling them bad names if I sit down to play the $500 poker tourney at Bellagio. (I won't. There's a $27 entry at Hooters. Which do you think I'll choose, hmm?)

    What I can't promise is that I'll even come back at all. I figure if I make enough money ($39 is my goal), my four-day weekend might turn into a seven-year stint in which I regularly play the biggest back-room cash games in the city, parlaying that $39 into hundreds, maybe even a cool thousand dollars! Oooh.

    But I'll keep my eye on the No. 2 pick if I'm not there in person. I'm sure Millen's got his eye on Calvin Johnson.

    Thanks for the good wishes, TheKid.

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  3. Calvin Johnson - LOL. For once, the wide receiver SHOULD be their #1 pick. But will they do it? No.

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  4. No worries on the Hoge CD, I have to justify that membership from time to time (by the way, I evened out the purchase on the music scale by also getting Godsmack's latest offering...what can i say, sometimes I like a little angry music). I'll have to steal Hoge's live one from you sometime.

    Don't worry, you'll be there for Draft Festivis. After a long weekend in the desert as a VIP'er, you'll be craving normalcy in good ole Elcho, WI!!!

    And as Mel Kiper Jr's long lost son, I agree that CJ should be the pick and no, Millen won't have the stones to do it. I also don't agree with the scuttlebutt that they take Gaines Adams at #2. I believe the Lions trade out, even if it's only down to #5 with Arizona so AZ can take Thomas #2 and DET can still get Adams at #5.

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  5. I guess I was wrong. I'm not too happy that this guy is in the NFC North.

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