a few notes for this new year

I won't do any New Years resolutions-they rarely stick and I feel like I'd be setting myself up for failure. That can't be a good thing.

New Years Eve was spent dining with friends at an awesome restaurant where the food and the service were both excellent. It's a rarity, but a refreshing change. Granted, my dining experience in the last few months has been more of the '$7.86 at the first window', but still. Great food and great company with damn good conversation always makes for a fine evening, especially now. Face it, New Years Eve is great if you're 21, maybe up until you're 25. But after that, do you really want to go out, spend $100 to walk into a club, then have to sit in the cold trying to hail a cab to get you and your drunk friends home? When you could already stay home and/or have friends over and tie one on and pass out in your own bed? I was home before midnight and thought nothing of it.

New Years Day, however, was another story. I had a wedding to go to. I know, new year, new start, it's a nice touch. The ceremony was good, a few nice subtle touches to the whole shebang...but the reception? Now that's where things got fun. I will only give the highlights:

1. 4 (!!!!) speeches/toasts....what, the cast and crew from 'Lord of the Rings' wasn't around?
2. Speech #1 was by the best man, and oldest brother to the groom. Other than some drunken rambling about welcoming to the family (of folks who are extremely proud of their heritage-I thought those people only existed in movies...nope, they're real).
3. Speech #2 was by drunk brother #2, who for me, had one of the biggest mistakes/awesome lines I've ever heard at a wedding. He said, to the groom mind you, "Man, your new bride is like a 12. She's awesome. You've all met my wife, she's great, a 10, but this girl you married is fantastic!" Oh yes, it was that awkward, I cannot lie to you. Here's the sign you know it's going downhill, fast-when everyone at the your table is looking at each other mouthing 'is this really happening?' Better than that, maybe, was discussing how many girlfriends his brother didn't have and how picky he was. I can relate, on the picky part, but this started to feel like a roast.
4. Speech #3 by drunker brother #3. Pretty much rambling the same 3 phrases over and over. 'Thank you all for coming out. This has been a great evening. So nice that our families will be joined together forever.' In various tones, inflections and in different orders, but those were the three strong sentiments, over and over and over and over again.
5. Speech #4, delivered by the maid of honor, and sister of the bride. It clocked in at 8 minutes and other than calling the groom 'Charlie Brown' (for real, no man wants to be called Charlie Brown, especially on his wedding day-what possible good connotation can be gleamed from that?), the moment that may stick around for awhile, like a stale beer fart, is the notion that this woman called her own sister a ho. And I quote, "my sister has had a LOT of boyfriends, A LOT..." I couldn't see the look of horror on the bride's face, but the groom did shout out a quick, 'Thanks, sis' for her noting the amount of men her sister seemed to have around. This turned to a bad sitcom episode, fast.
6. The drunk couple sitting to my right, the guy who wore the douchey suit-an embroidered suit jacket, like out of a bad Ed Hardy collection. And the woman, who decided to sing every song the DJ played and screw up the words. I appreciated when her date/boyfriend left the table and she asked me if I wanted her number, because I was cute. Flattered, slightly, but more horrified that some people don't believe in the philosophy of dance with who brung ya. Stay classy, honey.
7. The highlight of the night, for me, however, was the drunk girl pole-dancing. Well, more like column-dancing. There were 4 columns surrounding the dance floor in this ballroom, this woman, wearing what I can only describe as a sweater dress, was dancing like she was in a music video or working at a strip club. Mouthing all the words and showing some part of the control top portion of her panty hose. It was a car wreck, I didn't want to see it, but I couldn't look away.
After all that fun, I had to go. I love that I live downtown now and just took a cab to and from this event, cost about the same as a valet and I didn't have to warm up a car or risk anything.

The job front
I stated before that something good was going to happen soon, and I still believe that it will. I had a phone interview for a cool little company downtown this morning, and that is promising.

In other news, I think that the Business Intelligence sales/biz dev dream has fought the good fight and lost. I don't have what companies are looking for. While I was very successful in that role in the past, companies can't look past the duration of that role. I was laid off, thru no fault of mine, for that job. I was offered to move to Tampa to keep that job, I just made the choice not to move to Florida at that time. I stand by that decision. I knew what was keeping me in Denver at that time, or where else I was considering I would go. Tampa just wasn't it. I listened to my gut, and would again given that chance. And I have to state, I don't blame companies for not wanting to take a chance on me in that environment. They are looking for someone with more experience and a little bit safer. I don't knock them for it. But I look at my numbers, and what I did with all that was going on in my life, and I can smile. I did the best I could, was the only salesperson to make goal, all while my Pops was diagnosed with lung cancer, going thru treatment across the country and then passing away. I left it all on the floor/table/ice/field, no regrets. I'll consider that a success in my life. Now, I move on to another endeavor, hopefully soon.

Football
Cleveland fires Mangini-should have done that last year, Holmgren.
Carolina let's Fox go-it was time, I look for John Fox to end up as a great D-Coordinator somewhere (Houston?)
Cincinnati retains Marvin Lewis-uh, ok. But they better get an indoor practice facility and that GawdAwful WR sideshow needs to be shown the door, too.
Oakland fires Tom Cable-this goes into the 'WTF?!' file. Makes absolutely no sense. He just led them to a sweep of the division.

Kathy Griffin takes on a 16 year old. This is how you know your time on the D-List is officially over. Someone else call the T.O.D., it's too embarrassing to even discuss any further. I believe the term you're searching for is 'hack'.

and I'm out this mofo.