I Hath Returned

OK, I really did mean to attempt to blog while on my road trip, but due to the fact I passed out most evenings when we got back to our hotel (humidity + walking for miles makes me tired), this did not happen. Aside from that, we had multiple issues with internet access: one motel's idea of wi-fi was like a 28.8 modem and another hotel was equipped with only an Ethernet cord that Amy's laptop did not like. We also encountered, unbeknown to us, we were going to incur "International Roaming Charges" on our iPhones while in Canada (Fuck you AT&T) so checking the net for three days was verboten unless we could get wi-fi on the smart phones.

But aside from that, it was a fun trip and I'm sad to see it end. I have 1200+ photos to go through. I am only on Day Two of posting them to Flickr so this may take awhile. I will also put up a summary here once I have some time - hopefully this week. In the meantime, here's a list of all of the places we stayed/stopped at during our eight days:

Chicago-South Bend, IN-Bryan, OH-Toledo-Cleveland-Ashtabula, OH-Conneaut, OH-Erie, PA-Silver Creek, NY-Buffalo, NY-Niagara Falls, NY-Niagara Falls, ONT-Toronto-London, ONT-Southfield, MI-Detroit-Hamtramck, MI-Ann Arbor, MI-Chicago

Needless to say I put over 1,200 miles on my car. He performed admirably.

And now it's to bed as I'm sure there are various disasters I must fix when I'm back at work tomorrow. HUGE SIGH

Vacation Time!

So I fully intended to do an in-depth and informative post, as you will always receive here on afoui (*snort*), regaling you of vacations of days past and a preview of what is to come this week. Unfortunately work kicked my ass all week, resulting in long hours and most evenings spent falling asleep in front of the TV - I am turning into my father. So seeing as it's past midnight and we're getting up at 7am in order to hit the road early, a scant paragraph or two is just gonna have to do.

Saturday: Cleveland
Sunday/Monday: Niagara Falls/Buffalo
Tuesday-Thursday: Toronto
Friday: Detroit
Saturday: HOME!

We don't have too much planned for certain. We're doing the Rock and Roll HOF in Cleveland, Niagara Falls of course, and the Hockey HOF in Toronto - I've already bought my tickets for that bitches! Expect a lot of photos of old signs and the other off beat shit I like to take pictures of. I predict I will get at least two blisters, sun burnt once and probably eat something that won't agree with me. But I don't care - I love vacations, and I am increasingly loving going on road trips - there's just so many cool and strange things to see when you drive.

I'll attempt to make a post or two on here during our time on the road, but I will be tweeting and probably throwing pictures on flickr too. So if you're so inclined, check out the links on the right.

Later!

Stanley Cup Finals Game Three: Flyers 4, Hawks 3 (OT) - Mel wanted them to come home anyway

This is gonna be quick and dirty as this game was depressing and I'm really in no mood to spend much time on it.

Honestly, I don't think anyone expected the Hawks would sweep this series. Although being up 2-0, the thought was nice. If we can pull one out tomorrow, we come home needing only one win to get to the promised land. And that is fine by me.

In order to do that, the Hawks need to note the following:

- The Hawks haven't played their A game consistently yet this series. This is comforting to a point, but we're going into Game Four here. Get it together already!
- To that end, the Hawks seemed to be playing the more Flyers game last night than their own. You're a puck possession team - quit looking to make hits just to make them. By all means, don't sit there and take their dirty play, but don't stoop to their level. Play your game!
- Buff needs off the top line. Like yesterday - he's reverted to regular season form. Please put Brouwer out there and make Pronger do more than cross check and throw elbows. Like skate a little.
- I hope Ladd is back tomorrow. Burish needs to sit: if the only thing you're contributing in the Cup finals are one liners from the bench you need to go away.
- Q, why the fuck were you so concerned with matchups in OT? It's playoff hockey - put your best lines out there and make competent changes after shorter shifts. Your schizophrenic quick changes cost us this game.
- The Philly goal horn dude has a heavy finger. And why does the horn last so damn long? It's worse than the damn cannons in Columbus.
- I hope Pronger chokes on a bag of chips.
- OK, Nemo - you're due for another big game tomorrow right?

That's all folks. Thankfully I'll be watching the game tomorrow at bar. Yay, alcohol!

Jesus saves....at Wal-Mart

Really am behind on posting here but I have an excuse - I'm sick. I really don't know how I made it through eight hours of work today without passing out or biting people's heads off. Ok, I did a little of the latter.

In any case - enjoy the photo below from a local church. I did not take the picture - I just found it on the twitter-sphere.

Three more days - thank god. Watching the Cubs is giving me the twitches.

Funny, I used to like the color orange

Not really much of a post here, as I'm focusing on putting my pictures of Game Four on flickr, and all I have is a ceiling fan in our office. I'll let you know if Mac Minis have a melting point.

Anyway, Flyers vs. Hawks for the big shiny thing. Not much of a recent history between these two teams. Seeing as Philly fans infamously threw snowballs at Santa Claus (ok it was the NFL, but still), I don't need much reason to hate them. How am I going to make it until Saturday without passing a stone? I guess it gives me plenty of time to wax poetic on here.

Oh, and just so you don't think I don't love you all, here's a gem from before warmups:

Hee hee hee!

Even more quickly

GOOOOOOOO HAWKS!

BOOOOOOOOO SHARKS!

MISSING PART ONE:
Has anyone seen two creepy ass Swedish twins - last seen about two weeks ago in LA?

Is something burning in my oven? Oh wait, it's just Montreal.

MISSING PART TWO:
Has anyone seen that guy that scored the gold medal winning goal for Canada? You know the one who's "beard" is almost as bad as Kane's.

Who knew the Bruins were playing the role of the Yankees in their reenactment of the 2004 ALCS?

So that guy the Flyers pulled out of the stands to be their 65th goalie this year is pretty good, no?

[Note: A more serious post tomorrow. I gotta start getting more than six hours of sleep. Good night my friends!]

Quickly

Really wanted to do an angsty Game Five post tonight, but work kicked my ass today and I vegged much longer than I should have. I also needed to balance my checking account which took *forever* since I hadn't done it since March. Eep. Thank god I use autopay for almost all of my bills.

In any case, I'll try to post something before Game Six (by writing it at work....shhhh) but needless to say last night sucked. But hey....

...we could have been up 3-0 and are going on the road hanging by a thread at 3-2 with zero momentum (hello, Bruins).

...we could be the defending Stanley Cup Champions going to a Game Seven against a team that no one thought deserved making the playoffs, much less possibly knocking off the game's two poster children (hello, Penguins).

...we could be the Sharks. Teal is ugly.

Adios!

I Can Breathe

Full recap tomorrow (along with thoughts on the other seven playoff series) but wanted to give a big THANK YOU for whatever deity was listening that gave the Hawks a fairly convincing win tonight. This series is not over - not by a long shot, but I think this win not only takes a lot of pressure off the Hawks but by the way the Preds were gooning it up at the end, I think we got in their heads a little bit.

I love you Antti Niemi.

Good Night!

Calgon Take Me Away!

I know I should be writing two Hawks recaps (have I mentioned how much I hate back-to-backs?) but I am way too grouchy and out of sorts to put forth the effort. So you'll have to wait - I'm sure everyone is just waiting with bated breath.

Work has just been too much this week. Not anything particulary *bad* has happened, but I am in no mood for bullshit and annoyance and I've been getting extra helpings of both since Monday. I haven't been sleeping well (or much) this week either, so I basically feel like a sack of potatoes that's been sat on by a sumo wrestler.

I'm trying to be productive at home by doing the dishes and four loads of laundry so I can go out and "play" this weekend. At this point, my ideal would be lying in bed with covers on watching DVDs on Saturday and Sunday, but I'm going to make an effort to be social.

OK, enough bitching - here's something amusing I found on YouTube recently (it repeats itself so you don't have to watch the whole thing). I have to go fold some more goddamn clothes.

Goin' East

So we'll be leaving for Columbus, OHIO (it's more fun when you put it in caps) shortly. I'll be at the Hawks/Blue Jackets game tomorrow night. Thankfully I'm in a good mood to travel due to the Hawks win over the 'Yotes last night. Anyway, Toodles (Mr. Jim)!

Game 62: Islanders 5, Hawks 3 - Mel believes in brevity

This.

Game.

SUCKED!