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Wednesday: December 01, 2004 - Hey Big Tex, I poked em all I still have no idea what exactly is wrong with my computer. I tried a new virus scanner and it found about 700 viruses. I got everything cleaned up and fixed all the initial registry problems but now it seems any sort of Microsoft product causes the computer to crash. IE, Word, whatever, it brings the whole system down.

And now, the much-anticipated vacation highlights:



Man, I totally can't remember what we did. I used Jamie's sister's laptop to keep a list but we couldn't find a way to transfer it over to me before she took it back. Hmm. We left a little bit late because allegedly some wife on the previous cruise had thrown her husband overboard and they were looking for the body. Who knows, though. I do remember getting lost on the boat during dinner and our Vietnamese steward teasing me mercilessly for the next four days about it and making sure everyone in our row of rooms knew I was an idiot. Since it was Thanksgiving, they served turkey but I had some braised veal instead. That was still at the point in the cruise where I was polite enough to only order one item from each section of the menu. By the end we were all ordering three or four entrees plus all the other stuff. After dinner we went to some ship-meeting thing and caught the end of bingo. The host was a guy about my age named Big Tex. I wish Matt Flynn had been on the cruise because he said to shout, assuming you had bingo, "Hey Big Tex, I poked 'em all". I kept repeating this phrase and no one in our party found it very amusing. If Matt had been there we could have kept saying it back and forth for duration of the trip. My goal on the cruise was to gain ten pounds. I'm pretty sure that I did not make it, despite my best efforts. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Thursday: December 02, 2004 - Ahoy Maties Ahoy maties. On Day 2 of our Caribbean vacation I got to do something really fun that I'd never done before--snorkeling. I will be the first to admit that I am a product of my upbringing: I have horrible fears of anything new. While within my family I am probably the most daring, compared to a normal person I am as closed off as anyone. It was for this reason that Jamie made me a deal before we left--if I agreed to try snorkeling she would, get this, spend a full day playing video games with me. And not games she would enjoy. Oh, I was going to make her play my horribly nerdy games like Civilization 3 and Playstation car racing games. Little did she know that I would have agreed anyway, but I put on a pretty good show of not wanting to do it and hence got a pretty good deal. Anyway, originally we were going to kayak out into the ocean reefs and go snorkeling from there but alas, it was more expensive that we'd budgeted and we settled for taking a catamaran out. I had never donned the snorkeling gear before and everyone on the boat had a good laugh at me. In addition to looking like a fool, I hadn't been a non-cruise boat in ages and might have had a problem or two standing up without falling over. Jamie decided to call me Sea Legs and ever time I hear it I break into uncontrollable laughter. Once we were at the reefs I bravely plunged into the water, effectively guzzling a gallon or two of sea water. After the nausea passed I moved on to really enjoying myself. We saw a bevy of cool fish and someone allegedly saw a barracuda but I think he was lying to get attention from the host of hot teenage girls on the voyage. Speaking of hot teenage girls, a dirty old grandpa poured beer onto his napping granddaughter's bare belly on the boat. Gross. Anyway, the time went by really quickly and I would happily snap that stupid mask on again if the opportunity presented itself.

The most interesting part of the trip was that I discovered my dad's identical twin. He was the captain of the catamaran. Not only were they completely identical looking (expect replacing my dad's Midwestern skin with tanned Caribbean-sunned skin) they also had identical personalities. It was uncanny. Had I had a camera I would have taken a picture. I was going to Photoshop up a nice picture but I'm tired. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Friday: December 03, 2004 - Nassau It could be worse--you could be living in the Ukraine protesting next to this woman. This is one of the scariest pictures I've ever seen and there it was right on the Drudge Report's main page. They had it all reduced so you couldn't really see the scariness of it. But still, it's scary.

On Day 3 of the Caribbean vacation, we spent the day in the capital city of Nassau. We took a cab ride with a million other passengers up to the island's main business--Atlantis, the huge hotel/casino. We paid to see the aquarium as well as "the dig". The aquarium was pretty cool. It's the world's largest natural habitat aquarium and they had tons of rays, sharks and crazy fish. Afterwards we saw "the dig", this exhibit of the ancient Atlantians. It was all artists' renderings and was pretty horrible. It was really tacky and I can't believe the millions of dollars they spent making this stupid tunnel look like people had lived there. God, it was lame.

After that Jamie hit the casino and won $20 on the slots. We had lunch there next to a disgruntled Hungarian man who had lost a lot of money. On the ride back I sat next to this woman who was with her seven kids. They were hopelessly rich and she had a diamond on her finger the size of Chompy with the matching Rolex. She had already blown her $500/day blackjack fund so now they were going under some bridge to get some conch soup. At dinner all the waiters had to dance. I'm sure it was very demeaning and I wish they wouldn't make them do that. Oh well. At least they're out of the Ukraine. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Saturday: December 04, 2004 - Envy (The Movie) I've seen my share of weird movies but Envy was just...weird-weird. I thought Jamie was going to rent Gangs Of New York but she decided it was too violent so she brought this one back instead. The first half was just terrible. Then it got even worse and just weird, making it pretty funny. The creepiest man alive, Christopher Walken, was in it and his character just really put it over the top on the weird meter. I'm not sure I'd recommend it because, damn, it was just SO WEIRD.

I spent the afternoon dodging traffic between Theory-Chris and Matt's house. I settled into some college football afterwards. That's about it. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Sunday: December 05, 2004 - Dog Santa Today Jamie and I brought our dogs to PetSmart for their annual pictures with Teenage Santa. It was a nightmare really. Abby, who doesn't like to be picked up, couldn't have looked any more miserable since they kept trying to pick her up. Chompy went with the photo guy agreeably enough, much to my surprise. Oh ho, little did I know this was part of her plan. Assuming she was going to be obedient, he foolishly let go of her collar and started to walk away to get his camera. Waiting until she was going to be just out of his reach, she made a break for it. Without taking so much as a step, she kind of leapt through a space in between a couple of boxes underneath their desk and took off. I went to get her but these two stupid college girls were too busy cramming their little dogs into pink sweaters to get out of my way. I called her and she came back fortunately. There were also two PetSmart employees by the door for just such an emergency. Irritated, Chompy decided to exact her revenge with a big old spite pee. Ah, the miracle and majesty of Christmas. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Monday: December 06, 2004 - Scores Scores... [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Tuesday: December 07, 2004 - Happy Birthday Matt Flynn! I worked on scores to celebrate Matt's birthday. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Wednesday: December 08, 2004 - Steel Drum Music I got around to downloading all the pictures from the cruise today. None of them are particularly awesome but that one is kind of cute. I cropped out my gut hanging over my blue and orange shorts as well as Jamie's lack of a bellybutton.

I have an interview tomorrow with the Department of Agriculture as their web designer.

I sent Alan a bunch of scores last night. I can't believe the amount of bad music that's going into our grade schools. It's pretty appalling. Speaking of music for grade schools, I started work on a band piece for my college buddy Rosemary's middle school band. I think I'm going to call it Cavalcade. I've never written for such young students, so hopefully my brilliant ideas will translate well into instruments with ranges of less than an octave. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Thursday: December 09, 2004 - Bureau of Seafood and Aquaculture Today I had my interview with the Bureau of Seafood And Aquiculture Marketing. I think it went really well on the whole. The place had at least one fish tank per office and as a fish-fan I have to take that as a good omen.

I think I'd really fit in well there--it's a small office and although it's a bit of a drive for me (down at Innovation Park), everyone I met was exceedingly helpful and pleasant. The only downside is that I'll be working for the City for at least two more weeks while they decide. The pay is ok, though--just a little less than I was making at JAC. It's certainly livable and that's all that matters to me at the moment. Especially if there are free fish involved (and there might be). [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Friday: December 10, 2004 - Everything is Long Man, I can't remember anything from Friday. Wait...it's coming. I remember staying up late to play video games with Jamie and Mark. Work was long, I remember that too. Hmm, surely I did something else. I went grocery shopping. The traffic was terrible. Sorry, that's all I got. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Saturday: December 11, 2004 - Carol's Critters For the first time in a long, long time I worked on a Saturday. I had to make up my hours for the time off I took to interview as well as for missing on Monday and not going in until 9:30am on Tuesday.

It was pretty tedious--there were only four of us there and I was resigned to my office in complete silence pulling staples out of packets of paper (that's all I do). On Monday I'll start mastering the cassettes of people who had to be interviewed and taped. They refer to it as "mastering" when really it's simply recording it into Windows encoder and sticking the new file into a database.

What I could really use is a radio. Maybe pump some 80's Hair Bands to get people in the mood to process claims.

After work I went to Carol's Critters to see if they had any of the maroon cichlids I bought a year ago. They didn't of course but I had to try. I wanted to see because I suspect they had babies. I say suspect not because I can't tell if there are fish-babies (there are) but I'm not sure who made them. There were only four left by the time I found them and one of them is much bigger than any of the convict cichlids in the other tank (born on my birthday) so these must be pretty old. I have no idea what they are. I guess I'll wait for them to get older because right now they look like a cross between a maroon zebra and a bumblebee.

(They had a real cool Lionfish at Carol's Critters.) [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Sunday: December 12, 2004 - More Desperate Housewives Oh man, it's finally here. Another episode of Desperate Housewives. Time to see if my predictions from two weeks ago come true! Desperate Housewives is easily the highlight of my pathetic week. It's on in three minutes so I really have to just upload this and go. Sorry about the lag in the old updates--been a busy pup. The new DS Prediction List is up. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Monday: December 13, 2004 - Lion Steel Concert Another dull day at work. Zzzz.

Jamie and I met up with Matt Flynn to hear the Lion Steel concert over at Leon High. The school fixed up their auditorium and both groups played really well. Their energy was zapping through the place and aside from the fact they rushed like complete beasts, they put on a really good show. Afterwards we trotted over to Chili's for some grub. The Desperate Housewives Predictions List is updated yet again. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Tuesday: December 14, 2004 - Snood Jamie discovered Snood on Brian's old computer a couple weeks ago. And now I'm addicted again.

I didn't realize they had names so I guess I'm not that addicted. I'm not as good as I was when Kathy and I were playing 12 hours a day when were in school but I still can make those bank shots. I sold another copy of Stinger today and another Fugue for Four Leads. Good job me. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Wednesday: December 15, 2004 - Gross That's what I found under my shift key today. No wonder it was sticking.

Gross. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Thursday: December 16, 2004 - Cichlid Family We made a thank-you pot roast for Jamie's parents. It was pretty good--between the four of us we ate the entire thing.

I had to break up my happy cichlid family in the smallest tank because the mom and kids were slowly eating (and killing) Keanu. He moved up into the tropical tank (he can't hurt anyone without being able to swim) and the mom moved into the mean big tank. At dinner I discovered the mom was already worse for the wear and we tried to scoop her but there were too many rocks in the way. The nine surviving babies all seem to be doing fine. They could stand a more permanent home, though. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Friday: December 17, 2004 - Nothing Did nothing. All day. Just nothing. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Saturday: December 18, 2004 - Angel Flowers Apparently when you type "Angel trumpet" into google all you get are a bunch of lousy flowers and this thing. I was trying to find an apropos picture to proclaim my victory over Ricky in poker but I'll have to settle for this thing.

This morning I took Jamie and her parents to the airport and officially started my Ab-Sitting. She's been a real pain in the ass tonight. Chompy knows that she's here for a while and is trying to kill her. Ab, knowing her life is in danger, barks. Constantly. And loudly. It sucks. It's going to be a long week. I took a nap earlier and when I woke up Ab had eaten all my trash.

Maybe I can deal 1 damage to Ab. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Sunday: December 19, 2004 - Desperate Housewives Predictions Wow. What a terrible week for the Desperate Housewives Predictions List! Collectively we scored a whopping 0 correct answers. Rather than make my initial guesses now for the episode in three weeks, I think I'll sit on them for a while and hopefully knock out some of the worse ones.

Day Two of watching The Ab was much better than Day One. Aside from the fact they woke me up at 8:30, they stayed out of trouble. Kathy took me out to lunch at Ruby Tuesday's before I dropped her off at the airport and showed off the pool table. After I came back here and settled the dogs down I got down to business and worked on a bunch of scores. For dinner I made some potato soup and, get this, I cleaned everything up afterwards. [Comments: 1]· permalink · · ·

Monday: December 20, 2004 - John Downey Obituary Goodbye, my friend.

Downey Composed City's Identity

UWM emeritus professor worked with Youth Symphony Orchestra

By GRAEME ZIELINSKI

gzielinski@journalsentinel.com

Posted: Dec. 18, 2004

John Downey was a conductor, composer and teacher key to Milwaukee's identity in the world of contemporary classical music whose sometimes abstruse and always heartfelt works were performed and lauded here and across the oceans.

An emeritus professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee who taught there from 1964 to 1998, Downey also had a long relationship with the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra, for which he was the director of music theory.

He died Saturday at Columbia St. Mary's, Milwaukee Campus of stroke complications. He was 77.

Once called the "dean of Milwaukee composers" by a Journal Sentinel critic, Downey wrote more than 70 compositions - including "Chant to Michelangelo" and "For Those Who Suffered." They were performed by several of the world's leading music bodies, including the London Philharmonia Orchestra and the Warsaw National Philharmonic.

Downey also embraced his role as teacher. His former colleagues said his gentle, soft-spoken nature made him universally beloved.

"They sometimes describe the way he taught as somewhat otherworldly," said Francis Richman, executive director of the youth symphony.

His students have included some of the bright lights of contemporary classical music, such as composers Jerome Kitzke and Michael Torke.

"He was very influential to me in many ways," Kitzke said.

A major festival of Downey's work was performed at UWM in 1998 and again over four days in London in 1999. The latter slate received superlative reviews, though Downey's hard-to-define style befuddled one scribe from The London Guardian, who crankily described the work as "a combination of 'Hippie-Romantic' and early modernist."

For his part, Downey described as "undercurrent jazz" the elements flowing in his multi-layered pieces. The New Grove Dictionary of American Music told of how he used "modified serial procedures to achieve pitch coherence and large-scale harmonic relationships."

In any case, a Downey work never was easy to perform.

"It's challenging, but accessible," said Margery Deutsch, UWM director of orchestral activities.

In the 1970s, he was a founder of the Wisconsin Contemporary Music Forum. Downey also enjoyed a long collaboration with his wife of 48 years, Irusha, a linguist who died in 2000. In 1974, their collaboration, "A Dolphin," was performed at UWM.

They had met while both were graduate students in Chicago. Their marriage was predicated on Downey learning her native Ukrainian. The judge for the test, which he passed, was her father.

John Wilham Downey was born and raised on Chicago's south side. A talented pianist as a young boy, he honed his skills while playing jazz and blues improvisation in the city's toddling corner taverns.

He went into music as a living tribute to his brother James, who was killed in World War II.

He received a bachelor's degree in music from De Paul University in Chicago and a master's degree in that subject from Roosevelt University in Chicago. A Fulbright scholar, he earned a PhD from the University of Paris, where he wrote about the composer Bela Bartok.

Downey taught in Chicago before he was hired in 1964 by UWM's fledgling fine arts program.

"We were looking for someone just like John," said cellist George Sopkin, another early faculty member.

He received many honors for his work, including an honorary knighthood from the France in 1980.

Survivors include a son, Marcus, of Milwaukee; a daughter, Lida Munson, of Chicago; and two grandchildren.

A visitation will be Tuesday from 4 to 8 p.m. at Bruskiewitz Funeral Home, 5355 W. Forest Home Ave., and a funeral Mass is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. Wednesday at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, 812 N. Jackson St., both in Milwaukee. [Comments: 2]· permalink · · ·

Tuesday: December 21, 2004 - Playing Canasta Professionally If only I could make $40k/yr playing canasta. Since I can't, I'll have to continue interviewing. I had a good one this morning. For some reason my computer is poking along right now. JAC called me today to ask me where some files were. The conversation went something like this:



Lecia: Hey Mike, I was wondering if you happened to know where the CDs with the terminated files you scanned were?

Me: Do you have any intention of rehiring me?

Lecia: Well, no...

Me: I have no idea where your CDs are. Goodbye.

*click*

I know right where they are--right where I left them. Had your decision to let me go not been so rash, maybe I'd fill you in. Sorry...assholes. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Wednesday: December 22, 2004 - Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas. I'm going back to Chicago. See you on the 27th. Ho ho ho.











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Thursday: December 23, 2004 - Delta Sucks Delta sucks. Jamie took me to the airport but I didn't get there with enough time to "check" my bags. I left my keys and cell phone in the little tray too. Thank God the flight didn't take off until three hours after the original departure time. No seriously. I needed my cell phone because I was delayed another six hours in Atlanta. Delta couldn't have been more unhelpful--I won't be flying with them again. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Friday: December 24, 2004 - Ping Pong Christmas Eve was unremarkable except for the fact Steve and I lost in our annual ping-pong doubles match. This, you see, is unprecedented. As the Princess Cruise Lines Doubles Champions a large part of Christmas Eve is Steve and I destroying our family members. Not this year. I hadn't played since lat year and it showed. My serve was still deadly but my inability to put any english on the ball cost us big time. Sorry Steve. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Saturday: December 25, 2004 - Merry Christmas (for real) Merry Christmas.





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Sunday: December 26, 2004 - Delta Still Sucks Delta sucks again! Why yes, I would like to get home at 2am. At least Jamie made me some Welcome-Back breakfast--at 3am.



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Monday: December 27, 2004 - Manpower Sucks Back to scanning. Work was uneventful. I thought I'd hear back about a job but no.

Manpower is really kind of taking advantage of me. I didn't realize they got a personal commission on "selling" me for a direct hire. That doesn't seem very fair because they're asking an individual for $5000. First off, am I only worth $5000? Secondly, negotiate for crying out loud. Charge them less so they might actually consider me. You assholes. [Comments: 4]· permalink · · ·

Tuesday: December 28, 2004 - Thanks Chris! Chris made us a DELICIOUS thank-you dinner. Veal, potatoes and homemade chocolate/chocolate-chunk cookies. Mmm mmm mmm. And I'll give you one guess who got the leftovers. That's right, it was me.

In other news, I read somewhere (on the internet, so it must be true) that PETA spends 99.6% of their budget on marketing. If you want to save some animals, go purchase farms and run them yourself you idiots.

Still no word on the job scene. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Wednesday: December 29, 2004 - He's Ba-ack I'm back--I'll post all the previous entries when I get back from work tonight. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Thursday: December 30, 2004 - Hooray for Google Hooray for Google. After a month of the new site layout, all the pages finally made it into their cache. Yahoo has had them for a while but Google just got them yesterday--dramatically boosting hits.

I took the morning off work to go meet with the possible-job and, without getting my hopes up too far (remember William and Mary?) I think it's safe to say that at least it's a possibility that I'll have a new job within the next few days. The new "Life Manager" or whatever the official title seems to be a really amazing guy. And I think you, my loyal readers, will confirm that I rarely have anything nice to say about anyone--especially after an initial meeting. But seriously, this guy is awesome. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Friday: December 31, 2004 - A New Job! Of the many ways to cap off a year, I think it's harder to top a new job. I received my official offer yesterday while devouring a steak at Longhorn. Come Monday, a new chapter begins. A chapter that hopefully will not involve requesting forbearance from loan companies.

Chris and Mike came over for New Years. The time went by really quickly and I was probably asleep by 1:30. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·