desperate house boy

i'm not going to comment on the fact that it's been a while since i've posted something. i believe i covered that in my very first posting.

have you ever noticed how confusing a locked door in public can be to the person trying to open it? i was recently hosting a focus group for work and the inside doors in our building lock at 5pm, so i had to wait downstairs to let people in who were participating in the group. now, our office also shares space, on the main floor with TD Canada Trust and inside the main doors are two other sets of doors aside from the ones that lead to where i was - 1) to the inside of the bank, and 2) to the ATM machine which also had its own set of doors from the outside.

the ATM's inside doors also lock at 5pm which means that the only way you can get to the machine is through the exterior doors. and this, my friends, is how i realized the problem of the locked door.

people would enter the main door and then try to enter the locked doors leading to the ATM, not knowing they were locked. so they'd reach out, and pull. that not working, they'd try the other door. it too was locked. so they'd take a step back with a very puzzled look on their face and then they'd try each door again. still not opening, they then tried to puch the door open... you could see the frustration building up on their faces... that's usually the time they'd notice the exterior door and would leave. i sat there for a good 15-20 minutes and i counted at least five people who all went through the same routine. it was absolutely hilarious... and i highly recommend you finding a similar location and watch people.

and now this...

i wish my name was Todd, because then i could say, "Yes. My name is Todd. Todd Blankenship." Oh, also I wish my last name was Blankenship.

business idea

if i ever opened a trampoline store, i don't think i'd call it trampo-land, because you might think it was a store for tramps, which is not the impression we are trying to convey with our store. on the other hand, we would not prohibit tramps from browsing, or testing the trampolines, unless a tramp's gyrations seemed to be getting out of control.

week 2

ok. so there's a disturbing pattern forming in my 2005/06 basketball season. it was another losing week for us. and unfortunately, i have to take 90% of the blame this time. in all of the games we played, we were ahead for the majority of the game (or tied)... which i will take some credit for as, once again, i played stellar offense. unfortunately, when it came down to closing out the game, my offense fell apart and i couldn't make a shot, regardless of how easy it was.

offense: solid at the beginning of each game. non-existant when it counted. i'm so ashamed!
defense: i'd say it was about the same... adequate. could have been stronger though.
rebounds: i think i improved here. not my best rebounding performance, but stronger than last week
assists: gotta say i picked it up a notch in this area. saw the whole court and got the ball where it needed to be.

record: 2 wins, 5 losses -- this has got to get better at some point, right?

"my wife has an inner ear infection"

last day of the long weekend. i'm very happy that today is thanksgiving because it allowed me to sleep in - which i couldn't do the last two days because i had stuff to do before friends arrived and then they spent the night. so i needed the extra "me" time today. all in all, last week was a good cake week. even though i didn't go out and buy my own cake, like i thought i might, i ended up having 3 cakes. unfortunately, i had to share all of them... but still, 3 cakes is a pretty good number - don't you think?

you know what?

i wish i would have a real tragic love affair and get so bummed out that i'd just quit my job and become a bum for a few years, because i was thinking about doing that anyway.

the actual saga

ok... about this saga thing i've been talking about. it's really not a saga at all. it's basketball. basketball season (or more accurately, my basketball season) started last wednesday night and to say i was excited would be like saying it's a little warm on the sun. i've been waiting months for a regular game of basketball and now it's back!

so i think i might keep a regular posting of how the games go as well as my performance so i can see where i need improvement (which, i'm guessing in most cases will be nowhere). so last week... week 1 if you will, i played 3 games. i won the first one and we lost the other two. the reason i say that is that i shot the lights out of the first game. we were down by a lot near the half-way point and i just decided to take over and we came back and won - in fact we almost doubled their score by the end.

in the next two games, i had some feelings of guilt for being a bit of a ball hog/show-off so i decided to include my team more actively. and although i realized that they were struggling offensively, i continued to give them the ball so it's definitely partially my fault we lost. i had a significant height advantage over my defender in both games and didn't take full advantage. so... in summary:

Offense: i ruled! one of my best offensive performances ever. EVER!
Defense: adequate, but could have been stronger. had a height advantage but didn't capitalize on it. only 1 block and i don't think i had any steals.
Rebounds: i did an ok rebounding job - considering it was the first week.

Record: 1 win, 2 losses (disappointing, but very early in the season)

it was a very good way to end my 30th year of life. made turning 31 much easier.

and the saga begins...

stay tuned for more details.