Transitions.
Mar. 5th, 2014 07:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogLots of them today.
* The weather. We're hearing rumblings about a warmup that might actually last weeks and months rather than hours and days. I wouldn't mind that at all.
* The Sabres. By this afternoon's trade deadline, they pretty much sold off every player on their roster who could have left in free agency this summer, leaving them with an average team age of about 20½ and something like 300 draft picks in the next two off-seasons. The key draft between the two is not this summer's but next's, when a dude named Connor McDavid is predicted to be the Next Great One in the lineage of Gretzky and Crosby, and for whom the Sabres are clearly prepared to suck into April 2015 to acquire in that year's draft. Unfortunately, that's also the summer when, likely, expansion franchises in Seattle and Quebec will bump the actual sucky teams and get access to the top two picks. To which I reply, respectively: Take your Skittles and leave me alone; and, merde.
* Work. I formally committed to one new client today, while parting ways with one from 2010 that came out of the woodwork in the morning hours of Monday, demanding the contents of the client's file and demanding it NOW. I worked out a way to provide it without dumping beaucoup bucks into xeroxing, and I will be done with "them" by this time tomorrow.
* Computers. Eleanor has wanted to get beyond her all-purpose tablet for several weeks now, and after seeing some ads for reasonably priced laptops over this past weekend, I encouraged her to research and pick one. The "one" turned out to be another Android tablet- only Office Max pretty much talked us out of the purchase earlier today. Their floor sample was plugged into a dead electrical outlet, and therefore she couldn't test a couple of things I suggested she check; the salesperson was utterly disinterested in our business and even greeted us with a full-on belch; and they didn't have the damn thing in stock, anyway. So we've regrouped, and she's now looking at some "2-in-1" laptop/tablet combos that cost a little more but will provide much more in the way of flexibility for both of us.
*This,... is NPR. Word came yesterday that Carl Kasell has announced his complete retirement from the network, including his primary remaining gig as the announcer/scorekeeper on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. This largely closes the circle on the public-radio talk programs that I've fallen in love with over the past almost 30 years: it follows Jim Packard's untimely death in a similar gig on Whad'ya Know, and the oddly undisclosed retirement of the Magliozzi brothers from Car Talk, which happened over a year ago but which they never hint at whilst giving out the "call-in" phone number multiple times every episode (if you call 1-888-CAR-TALK, or even the older 1-800-332-9287 local version burned into my brain last century, they reveal that "this week's" show is an "Archive" edition without disclosing that "every" one since "late 2012" has been "just that").
* Nothing. There is no sixth thing.
* The weather. We're hearing rumblings about a warmup that might actually last weeks and months rather than hours and days. I wouldn't mind that at all.
* The Sabres. By this afternoon's trade deadline, they pretty much sold off every player on their roster who could have left in free agency this summer, leaving them with an average team age of about 20½ and something like 300 draft picks in the next two off-seasons. The key draft between the two is not this summer's but next's, when a dude named Connor McDavid is predicted to be the Next Great One in the lineage of Gretzky and Crosby, and for whom the Sabres are clearly prepared to suck into April 2015 to acquire in that year's draft. Unfortunately, that's also the summer when, likely, expansion franchises in Seattle and Quebec will bump the actual sucky teams and get access to the top two picks. To which I reply, respectively: Take your Skittles and leave me alone; and, merde.
* Work. I formally committed to one new client today, while parting ways with one from 2010 that came out of the woodwork in the morning hours of Monday, demanding the contents of the client's file and demanding it NOW. I worked out a way to provide it without dumping beaucoup bucks into xeroxing, and I will be done with "them" by this time tomorrow.
* Computers. Eleanor has wanted to get beyond her all-purpose tablet for several weeks now, and after seeing some ads for reasonably priced laptops over this past weekend, I encouraged her to research and pick one. The "one" turned out to be another Android tablet- only Office Max pretty much talked us out of the purchase earlier today. Their floor sample was plugged into a dead electrical outlet, and therefore she couldn't test a couple of things I suggested she check; the salesperson was utterly disinterested in our business and even greeted us with a full-on belch; and they didn't have the damn thing in stock, anyway. So we've regrouped, and she's now looking at some "2-in-1" laptop/tablet combos that cost a little more but will provide much more in the way of flexibility for both of us.
*This,... is NPR. Word came yesterday that Carl Kasell has announced his complete retirement from the network, including his primary remaining gig as the announcer/scorekeeper on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. This largely closes the circle on the public-radio talk programs that I've fallen in love with over the past almost 30 years: it follows Jim Packard's untimely death in a similar gig on Whad'ya Know, and the oddly undisclosed retirement of the Magliozzi brothers from Car Talk, which happened over a year ago but which they never hint at whilst giving out the "call-in" phone number multiple times every episode (if you call 1-888-CAR-TALK, or even the older 1-800-332-9287 local version burned into my brain last century, they reveal that "this week's" show is an "Archive" edition without disclosing that "every" one since "late 2012" has been "just that").
* Nothing. There is no sixth thing.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2014-03-07 09:30 am (UTC)I actually ended up about to watch their game last night (since I pay for NHL GameCenter Live), but when they scrolled the lineups at the start of the game, I saw that Conacher was a scratch, and chose something else to watch.
(Part of me worries: how do you end up as a healthy scratch from the Sabres? I also was kind of disappointed, because it was a game against Tampa Bay, who was his first NHL team, before he was traded to Ottawa.)
no subject
Date: 2014-03-07 09:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-07 09:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-12 11:20 pm (UTC)Lucky you weren't in town to see me. Last minute weather-related travel changes meant I got into NYC about 28 hours later than expected, lost an hour to DST transition, and had to leave 7 hours earlier than the original plan, so chances of seeing you were nil. Next time!